The Many Deaths of Carlisle Cullen
by DuchessOfGere
Summary: Carlisle, a minister's son in 1664 London, is left dying on the street, his body awash with invisible fire that sears him from within. In desperation, he crawls into a cellar and waits for death to take him. Or, How Carlisle Learns Being Un-Dead Isn't Necessarily The Worst. [TW: attempted suicide, suicidal thoughts, violence, murder]
1. London 1664

**Summary:**

Carlisle, a minister's son in 1664 London, is left dying on the street, his body awash with invisible fire that sears him from within. In desperation, he crawls into a cellar and waits for death to take him.

Or, How Carlisle Learns Being Un-Dead Isn't Necessarily The Worst.

**Notes:**

Greetings, gentle reader!

A few notes on some of the choices I made writing this. I wound up reading a (short) book about Stuart London while prepping for this. The first thing I was surprised to learn is that there weren't any sewers in 1664 London. (Whoops!) Instead, I've made the London vampires industrious diggers. Also, as religion is a big deal to the average 1664 Londoner, Carlisle is vocally on the God Squad. I've abused google for fitting Bible passages. It is not my intention to make any sort of religious statement through this story. On language, I wanted a style that sort-of evoked 1660s English without the headache of actually trying to write like that. I think I landed somewhere near Regency English. I hope it enhances the story and doesn't distract from it. (Fingers crossed!) I tried to stick to the account Carlisle gives in the books, but I've definitely taken some liberties.

Thank you so much for reading. I hope you enjoy! Please leave a comment if you liked it!

* * *

Cursed by evil, flame consumed my flesh from within. The searing heat scorched my vital organs as if I had been roped to a pyre.

I lay in the narrow street, surrounded on both sides by overhanging houses and their slumbering occupants, struggling not to scream. I felt as if my very teeth were cracking under the effort. Even in my agony, I knew exactly what foul thing had been done to me. The bite on my shoulder pulsed with every labored beat of my breast.

The creature we'd hunted, that merciless issue of Hell, had passed her curse to me. Within days, dear God, maybe less, I would awaken as one of them: pitiless, soulless, and with only an overpowering thirst to fill the void within.

Dimly, as though from a great distance, I heard voices and footfalls. The flicker of torchlight shone on one of the houses at the end of the row. Vaguely, I realized it was my name the voices called, their tone high and fearful. Samuel and one of the others, Joseph perhaps.

I opened my lips to call to them, but naught but a pained and feeble croak issued out. My voice too was lost to the fire that scorched me.

Their voices faded and the torchlight with it. My eyes watered and I longed desperately for their return. Samuel would help. He would know how to put out the fire in my veins. He would…

A sudden, terrible thought struck me. Samuel may find me, but he would certainly not come to my aid. Samuel would know me for the monster I was becoming. He would put an end to me.

My heart galloped along with my thoughts. If my friends were to find me, death would be my only comfort. I had to flee!

_Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth._

No, no. It would be better for them to find me. Better to die now while I still may enter heaven. I blinked my tears away and tried to call again, but this time my lips would not even part. A cold fear froze them even as unseen fire surely blistered the flesh. Still, I could not call out. Cowardice had stayed me. It was better to die, but I wanted to live.

Fear gave me strength, and even through the flame I rolled myself onto my belly and crawled. Every motion was torment. I felt certain my skin must have blackened and sloughed away from the heat, but when I caught site of my hands, they were unchanged save for streaks of my own blood and the filth of the street.

I pulled myself along, nails digging into cobblestones, desperation nipping my heels. A cellar was my refuge. I scrabbled at the bolt and by some miracle it was poorly made and rusted. It broke away from the wood and I pried the door up.

It was dark inside, but the fire in my core had near taken my sight anyway and I scarcely peered into the darkness before slithering in. The ladder was beyond my ability and I tumbled harshly to the floor. My voice returned, and I screamed at the agony of the impact. By an act of mercy, the cellar door fell into place above me, concealing my entry.

The cellar was impenetrably black. I grasped around in the dark. I needed to hide. Samuel would not be put off by a mere cellar door. I needed to conceal myself.

My hand brushed against a familiar roughness: a hempen sack. I tried to pull it to me, but it was weighed down by its contents. Groaning, I pulled my wretched form over to it and clambered over. I wedged myself between the sacks and the cool earth of the cellar, shifting the fabric as best I could to hide myself.

My work done, I laid my head against the dirt. Though I had been fleeing death, this quite grave had found me none the less. All that was left was to let the fire burn me to ashes.

* * *

"What have you there, young Mr. Cullen?"

I'd only managed to get ten steps from my front door. I turned, smiling, though I knew the coming conversation would cause me significant delay.

The familiar, wide face of Mrs. Lowell, known as Patty by most in the parish, watched me keenly from her post at the stoop of her townhouse. She held a broom in one hand, although everyone knew her true purpose was in observing the comings and goings of her neighbors.

"Good morning, Mrs. Lowell. Only breakfast, I'm afraid," I said, holding up the linen bundle. "I'm a bit behind, so I had Cook warp it for me."

"It's not her turkey pie, is it? That won't keep in just a cloth." Patty put aside her broom and moved in, seemingly oblivious to my hint about running late.

"No pie. A bit of bread with cheese." She nodded approvingly, wiping her hands in her apron.

"A thin breakfast, but good for getting along quickly. You'll come by later, and I'll have some of my beef stew for you. Your father, as well, if he's inclined," she said, her wrinkling face shifting into an expression of authority. I nodded, not willing to question one of Patty's orders so early in the day. She seemed pleased, and I knew this was my moment to escape.

"Well, it was—"

"Nan! Nan!" A tiny girl shot from the house, arms outstretched, chased by their playful terrier. Patty spring into action and lifted the child onto her hip. The terrier took to circling her, tail wagging as it gazed up at the child.

"Ms. Hannah!" I said, utterly delighted. The child was Patty's granddaughter and I had never met a babe as sweet and lively as this little girl. Though it would not do to say aloud, I adored her most of all the children in my father's flock. She looked over at me, big green eyes growing even wider.

"Meer Cunnen!" she exclaimed.

"That's right, love! Mr. Cullen," Patty cooed, bouncing the girl on her hip. Wisps of hair escaped her little bonnet and fluttered in the spring breeze. She held her small, chubby arms out for me and I felt charmed by her all over again. "You'll come by later and say a proper hello to Hannah too, Mr. Cullen. When you stop by for your stew."

"That I will, Mrs. Lowell."

* * *

I could smell the earth. Rich and deep, like soil after it's just been tilled. Earthworms and rain. The ground was dry against my cheek, a thick layer of dust and dirt, but not an unpleasant sensation. I could hear sounds of the street. So clear, it seemed like the footsteps must just be missing my head.

I blinked my eyes open, reaching up from custom to rub the grit from them, but finding nothing but dirt clinging to my lashes. I looked around. The room was peculiarly lit, as if the sun shone upon it through clouds, though no window or opening existed to let light issue through.

I saw now that I was surrounded by sacks of potatoes and had managed to pull one over top of my body. Reaching out, I pushed at the sack intending to roll it from me. Instead, the whole parcel flew into the air and across the cellar as easily as a maid might throw a pillow. I sat frozen, dumbstruck by this unprecedented happening.

Slowly, creeping awareness stole over me and I remembered with horror the reason for my sudden strength. I shot to my feet, almost unsteady with my swiftness.

It was then I first felt the thirst.

It started like a scratch at the back of my throat that fanned into an ember. It was still nowhere the excruciating agony of the past days' fire, but it simmered away as a constant ill presence.

I moved to the cellar door, finding myself there faster than thought or time, and peered up through a slivered gap where the boards did not sit flush. Bright orange light, the brilliance of a sunset, spilled across the distant sky. I jerked back in fear, feeling the wall of the cellar against my back before I was conscious of having moved at all.

Curiously, my eye did not burn or sting the way I'd expected. Every good account said the vampire was a night-dwelling devil, so foul that the pure rays of the sun would reduce such a fiend to ash upon the slightest brush. Perhaps greater exposure to the sun was needed for such an effect. I was unwilling to try again to find out for certain and instead huddled myself into the corner and watched as the little strip of light faded from orange to blue and then finally to black.

The noise from the street had long faded, as had that faint and utterly maddening odor which had on several occasions nearly driven me from my seclusion with its succulent allure. I had to bury my face in the earthen wall and bite down on the sleeve of my coat until the delicious perfume had passed. By the end of the evening, my coat sleeve was reduced to tattered strips of wool.

As night at last came, I crept – still startling in my swiftness—to the door and eased it gradually open, being careful of my monstrous strength. The street was blessedly empty. With alarm, I realized I could hear people going about their nights inside their homes from my position.

Out in the open it was easier to smell the city, and I had never been thankful for the reek of London streets before, but in that instant, they were a gift from Almighty God. The stench of rotting rubbish and waste –provided in such copious measure by emptied chamber pots, un-tended cesspits, and the cities plentitude of horses— was so overpowering that it masked any wayward hints of the distracting, tantalizing smell that sought to lure me into sleeping homes.

I came to an intersection and wavered there under the flickering streetlight, unsure of my next course. I didn't dare return home. My father, aged as he was, would know me instantly to be an agent of Satan and would do his best to dispatch me. Samuel, Joseph, and the others would likewise do the same. I was not fit for people anyway. I was less than an animal now, and I needed to get far from good folk before I gave over to evil and devoured them.

My father's men and I had found the coven of vampires in a system of tunnels that ran beneath the city. We had been hopelessly outmatched, and the devils had torn the unlucky ones to shreds. Although, given my current condition, I began to think that perhaps even those poor souls had been more fortunate than I. They, at least, were with God.

I could run from cellar to cellar until I reached the woods. Or perhaps dig tunnels of my own the way the coven had. Yet, what kind of existence would that be? Running from man and God, hiding until morality abandoned me and I killed to slake my burning throat. It was a cursed existence. I could not think what to do next and hopelessness overwhelmed me.

At that moment, a night-soil man turned the corner with his cart. He trundled along toward me, and I was too overcome with surprise and indecision to flee. He noticed me, and I saw his eyes go wide and his mouth drop open, an expression resembling awe passing over his work-stained face.

I could smell him. Even through the refuse that coated his gloves and piled high in his cart, I could smell him. It was mouth-watering. Like a Christmas roast, no, far more delectable than any food could possibly hope to be. Savory and rich, promising a taste beyond mortal description.

The hellfire returned, and I realized it had never left me at all, merely concentrated itself in my throat, scorching me with the intensity of my thirst.

"Ah- ah- ah…" The man was stuttering, gaping at me like a fish on a line. I took a step toward him. There was a hint of sweet to the smell that I hadn't caught at first. Chocolate? Or cinnamon? My teeth ached.

"An angel," the man whispered.

I flinched. Then, aware of the horror I had nearly wrought, I turned and fled blindly, passing so fast that I was nearly too far to hear him when he called after me. I held my breath and ran, feeling every inch of the wretched curse pounding through my very being. I ran and ran, faster than any horse, the speed of an unnatural spirit, until I collapsed against stone, not from physical exhaustion for I felt not even a little winded, but from emotional anguish. I sank against the stone, letting sobs wrack me.

Misery was my only future now. I had been rent from God's grace, and but a moment ago had nearly slain an innocent man. I curled up like a child, the way I had not done since my youth, and cried.

Some time must have passed with me insensate to the world beyond my own despair. When I came to my senses, it was apparent that in my blind panic I had run to the one place I felt safest: my father's church. I was curled against the back wall, having apparently jumped the fence in my flight, nestled between the two bedraggled boxwood shrubs.

My instincts had served me well. No one would be here at this time, and I had unwittingly delivered myself to a perfect solution to my untenable problem. For no creature of Satan could safely tread upon God's own ground and as soon as I set foot into the church, I was sure to be struck dead. It seemed an obvious answer now that I had come upon it. To avoid an eternity of spreading evil over the earth, I would simply correct what I had been too cowardly to do before: I would seek my death.

Rising to my feet, I moved round towards that church doors, forcing myself to step with an exaggerated slowness matching what best I could remember as my former pace. I would die as close to a man as I could.

The doors were locked, but it was a mere flick of the wrist to break the bar and set it aside. I had a thought that thieves might get in, but it was better my father suffer a robbery in the night than I bring harm to another living creature by delaying. I pulled the door out and saw, for the last time, my little London church.

From just outside the threshold, I took in the neat wooden pews, silver in the moonlight. The alter stood a little above them at the far end, and behind it the large wooden cross we'd commissioned just two years ago.

I clasped my hands before me and closed my eyes.

"Eternal Lord God, Heavenly Father, I know not if you will hear a prayer from such as I. I only beg for your mercy and forgiveness. If I am still yours, I pray you strike me down and send my spirit to where it is best suited. You are just and powerful. Watch over my father in his remaining years. Defend him and his flock against the unnatural and those that seek to harm them…"

Little Hannah, her wispy yellow hair, reaching her small arms out to me. She was clear to me as if she stood before my very eyes. Though I had no breath left to steal, the sensation of breathlessness gripped me fast. I stuttered and could not continue my prayer. I looked again into the peaceful quiet of the church, a place I had grown up in and spent so much of my time.

"Lord Christ, have mercy upon me. In Your name, Amen." My last desperate entreaty delivered, I stepped over the threshold and onto hallowed ground.

The sole of my boot echoed like a drumbeat, ringing in my ears. I waited, forgetting to breathe, forgetting to move at all, as perfectly still as a statue. Expectant.

Nothing happened. A pig screamed in some distant sty, startling me. I took another step forward, both feet on the stone floor of the church. Bewildered, I gazed helplessly around, completely at a loss. I walked haltingly toward the alter, flinching at every distant sound, still waiting for the Almighty blow that would destroy me. Upon reaching the alter, I stopped again. Spying the bible on the pulpit I rushed –inhumanly fast—over to it and immediately laid my hand upon its cover.

Incomprehensibly, the only burning I experienced came from my parched throat. I started in consternation at the holy book. How was I not being punished for bringing evil into God's house? Like Uzzah touching the Arc of the Covenant with an unclean hand, God should strike me down for my trespass. I was a monster. A creature birthed from fire and death who longed only to drink the nectar of violence. I could never again be clean in God's sight.

I had, once more, not a single idea of what to do. I sat down in the front row pew and stared up at the cross.

Was it even possible I still possessed my soul? The idea was shocking, and I rejected it right away. I had never once heard of a vampire, werewolf, witch, or shapeshifter living by God's law and doing good upon the world. If the creatures had souls, then surely one at least would have come to God's grace.

Then again, I wasn't entirely certain that there wasn't a goodly monster. Such a creature may have been killed by its fellows or may have sought its own destruction before it could bring harm on others. Perhaps there was still a chance. Perhaps turned once-human monsters kept their mortal souls until they committed their first act of evil, as an opportunity for the Godly ones to reprieve themselves. I had kept my soul and God had given me the time to rid creation of the monster I would become.

_"Resist the devil, and he will flee from you,"_ I spoke into the quiet. The hot coal in my throat simmered away, a constant reminder. I had only to resist it. Resist it for long enough to find my own destruction.

I couldn't stay in the church. I would run to the cellars again, or perhaps a cesspit, and hide myself until morning. Then, I would meet the sun.

* * *

My father looked frail in the morning light. His stern countenance drooped, softened by time and weariness. It startled me, how I could sometimes catch him out of the corner of my eye and mistake him for an enfeebled elder before recognizing him. It was happening more and more where I would look up from a task and be dumbfounded by his diminished vigor. When had he aged so?

"We're closing in on this one, men." He tapped the map sprawled before us with two wrinkled fingers. Even aged, his voice was still whip-crack sharp, demanding attention and respect. "Carlisle, tell them what you told me," he instructed.

I stood up with more haste than was dignified, feeling self-conscious for speaking with authority in my father's presence. I could not help but look to him for approval before addressing the assemblage. He gave a terse nod. I cleared my throat.

"The deaths –Keel, Wilson, Ms. Jones, and Bloom—" I pointed to the places where each body had been found drained of blood with a terrible bite upon the neck, "have little in common. Not age nor sex, wealth nor profession. Only a general proximity to one another. But I noticed they all have one other similarity: a deep cellar that leads directly into the house. I paid a visit to Widow Keel and asked to examine her cellar. It took some effort, but I found beneath a wood crate a hole in the ground leading to a tunnel. I think the vampire has burrowed between the houses."

"What, like a warren?" Samuel interjected, barking a laugh. A few chuckles went around the room.

"Yes." I grinned, a large, fang-toothed hare leaping to mind. "Would that we only sought to catch rabbits. These, however, are far fouler beasts, and immeasurably more lethal."

"We have the justice of God on our side," Father interjected, bringing himself to full height. _"Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee."_

There was a round of nods from the room. I bowed my head. I yearned for my father's confidence and certainty, but secretly worried the great risk of our work was more dangerous than Father let on.

"Of course." I cleared my throat. "It also seems to me that even an industrious vampire could not have carved so many tunnels so quickly by himself. I think, therefore, that there must be more than one hiding among the cellars."

"Ah, for all you know he could have been at it for years," Samuel said. Some found his directness unpleasantly contrarian, but it was one of the traits I liked best about him. Samuel was never content to be if he thought there was flaw or error to be found in a plan. He had a sharp mind and nipped in the bud ill-considered ideas before they could bloom into disasters.

"Surely, poor Mr. Keel or any other of the victims would have noticed a hole in their cellar at some point in those years of labor. I think it more likely that the tunnels are recent and the work of many rather than one," I replied.

Samuel rolled my words around in that sharp head of his, his thoughts clear as day upon his sun-browned face. He appeared to find no fault with them –or one he was not willing to speak in front of my father, who was the only person who might curb Samuel's tongue—and fell quiescent.

"Fine work, Carlisle," Father said, placing his hand upon my shoulder in uncommon praise. He was smiling at me, a rare site that I greedily took to memory, a small flicker of pride beating in my breast.

* * *

The sun was rising. I could see the blue of early morning streaming through the crack in the door.

I'd put as much ground between me and the city's center as I could, getting only so far as Shoreditch before I began to fear meeting people as they set about their early work. I picked a ramshackle shed that faced out to an empty yard where the brush threatened to bump against the houses. I felt reasonably confidant that I at least would not have an audience in my final moments.

The sun's light was upon the earth. There was no point in delay. I took a breath –unneeded but comforting in its familiarity, a last taste of this mortal plane—and pushed open the shed door, stepping out into the gentle morning light.

My deepest fears were realized, and though I stood in full sun, my body did not crumble or wither. I had hoped it would be otherwise, convinced myself, but it seemed what had protected me in the church nave kept me also in the light of day. I turned to leave this place, to go further to the woods in hope of finding some other remedy, when the dancing of little lights caught my eye.

The ground around me was near sparkling with tiny fairy lights, twinkling brilliantly in the sun. With every step I took, they shimmered and scattered, following me every which way I moved. A brilliant glittering thing caught the corner of my eye and I recoiled from it before understanding, with incredible astonishment, that it was my own hand.

I held my palms in front of me and gaped at them, twisting them about in the light. My skin, which had appeared normal, if pale and cold, through the night, was sparkling like a fine lady's broach laden with gems. Where at night my hands seemed to be of marble, in the daylight they looked as though they were hewn from diamond.

I stumbled backward, casting about to make sure I hadn't caught the attention of any local taking a shortcut through the brush. No one presented themselves, and not quite knowing what else to do, I dove back into the sanctuary of the shed. Immediately, the glittering stopped, ceasing as soon as the sun left my skin.

I sat down in the back of the shed and contemplated this. We had long thought that vampires hid away from daylight because it damaged them, but if my own experience could be used as an example of the common vampire then they must be hiding from this remarkable condition. There could be no mistaking for human a vampire caught out in sunlight.

Briefly, I contemplated stealing paper and quill and writing this discovery down. I fantasized about somehow getting it to my father, or to Samuel, but such an endeavor would bring me far too close to people I dearly loved, and I could not abide even the slightest chance of bringing them to harm. The coal in my throat still burned with every inhale, and though I had learned to cease breathing –an uncomfortable but useful ability—it still scratched at me, demanding to be sated with blood.

I spent the day there, praying the shed's owner would want nothing from it and thinking about how I could end my cursed existence. I felt that God's dislike for ending one's own life could not apply in my case as I had surely been killed originally by the vampire who bit me. I was now existing between life and death in some unholy state. Always, always, the hellfire crackled in my throat. Even unbreathing, it would only be a matter of time before I succumbed to it. Seeking my end was the only course I had.

I considered my unneeded breath. Perhaps it was not that I didn't need air, but that I was using far less of it and could hold a single breath for days on end before requiring another. I had once seen oyster divers hold their breaths for four, almost five minutes at a time as they worked. Perhaps vampires exhibited an extended version of such a feat, the way they also had the exaggerated use of a man's strength and speed.

I settled on a plan. I would seek the nearest body of water –the Thames was closest, but I would push further East to avoid its most crowded areas—and drown myself there. If I exhaled and took in the water instead, it may be enough.

I meticulously examined my plan. I could not think of any stories of vampires who did not drown –though witches were said to be impervious—and it stood to reason that if they could not drown then they would likely make greater use of the Thames and Fleet River as hiding places. As I'd never seen any indication that they did so in all the years my father and I had hunted them, this appeared to me to be a strong option. I would enact it under nightfall, heading East through the country, overshooting London, and then coming back South to meet the Thames.

I settled in, tracking the slivers of light in their steady journey across the floor, and thought of anything except the burning in my throat, which seemed to grow unendurably hotter with each passing second.

* * *

It was a cool autumn day. A bit cold with no coat, and my arm was beginning to strain with the weight of Mrs. Lowell's shopping under it, but I didn't mind. I looked down at the little fist wrapped tight around my finger and couldn't help the fond feeling that overtook me. Hannah, for her part, took no notice of me. She was instead attempting to place the tiny gloved thumb of her free hand into her mouth.

"Now, none of that," Patty corrected, taking the offending hand in her own and breaking off her detailed description of Mr. Smith's surgery practice for the first time in three blocks. Hannah pouted miserably up at me. "Terrible habit. Causes a weak stomach later in life, you know," she told me.

I did not know, but the working's of the human body sometime interested me, and I pondered if such a thing might be true. Patty was a font of homespun knowledge, and though I took much of what she said with a grain of salt, I had come to respect her for her unparalleled success in keeping her family hale and whole.

Of all the women in the parish, Patty had been mother to seven and commendably seen all of them into adulthood. Two of her children had even suffered measles –I'd caught it myself that same year and nearly died from it— and both had come out the other side with no one else in the family taking ill.

Much later, I'd questioned Charlie Lowell, who I'd sometimes played with as a boy, curious as to what cure had been used to save him. My intent had been to compare it to my own painful treatment. Charlie had merely replied that his mother had managed it. To this day, I've never learned how she accomplished such a miracle. On occasion, I wondered if Christ might be working through her to heal the sick.

"Did you see young Mr. Turner's new doublet, Mr. Cullen? It sits on him like a saddle on a sow's back. I must say, you always look very well-appointed. Perhaps you might take him round on his next visit to the tailor and offer a few suggestions," Patty said.

Then again, sometimes I felt she must just be an uncommonly fortunate individual.

I was spared having to make a reply to such a statement by the little angel between us, as Hannah pulled at my hand and then let go to reach up for me. I scooped her up and she shrieked with laughter as I let her bounce high before swinging her down into my arms. She grinned at me, then tilted her chin as if puzzled by something. Her curious eyes regarded me in solemn contemplation, gaze fixed fast on mine. She brought one gloved hand up.

"None of that, now, Hannah," said Mrs. Lowell. "Terrible habit."

* * *

I crawled, wretched and sodden like a serpent from the depths, onto the banks of the Thames, coughing water out of my irritated but uninjured lungs. I'd stayed down for an hour, increasingly despairing as the water did nothing but cause an unusual pressure in my chest.

I lay on the bank, my clothes soundly ruined beyond repair by the befouled water. It occurred to me in my depression that perhaps vampires avoided the Thames because of the putrid smell.

My throat felt a thousand times worse than it had before. As I coughed the water out, I could, ever so faintly, catch the smallest whiff of deliciousness wafting from a boathouse across the river.

Before I knew it, I had jumped back into the river to swim to the smell. It was with great effort, and in large part due to the abhorrent stench of the waters, that I managed to turn myself away to swim further East.

I swam for the entire day. I did not tire or yearn for air even once.

As night fell again, I surfaced and took a cautious sniff. I had not seen a boat for leagues. My hopes were well founded, and I could not scent even a hint of the alluring perfume that sang to the evil inside me.

I swam to the shore again and discovered that the thin, rocky beach I'd alighted upon led directly up into imposing cliffs. I'd have to scale them if I wished to exit the river here. I was too nervous to press on or head back, fearful that I'd run across some innocent as they went about their business.

The black cliff must have been hundreds of feet high and I felt sure I'd never be able to climb it, and then I remembered that I'd just swum from sun-up to sun-down with no need for breath. The climb should not be a problem. I walked to the rock and began to scale it.

The climb proved even easier than I'd imagined. Where I could not find a handhold, I merely needed to punch one into the edifice and hoist myself up.

Over half the distance up, I happened to look back on where I'd begun, and had to grip the rock tight as a dizziness nearly took me. It was quite a height. Far higher than I'd ever been before. A fall from such a height would be instantly fatal.

I considered this for a while. Nothing else had worked, but vampires were not creatures beyond vanquishing. My father had told me himself of the three vampires he had slain. They had perished from a blade of silver through the heart. Any creature that could die from the blade would undoubtedly be felled by such a steep fall.

I looked up at the sky, the thick clouds shrouding the stars from view though I saw in perfect detail even without their faint light.

I did not wish to risk the breath to speak, so instead I gave my prayer is silence. Lord God, please grant me peace. Please let this be death I have been seeking.

I closed my eyes and let go of the rock.

I held my torch in one hand, my silver blade in the other. Samuel made grim eye contact with me and we nodded. Easing slowly down, Samuel and Joseph slipped into the Bloom's cellar tunnel.

I crouched by the entrance, listening intently for their voices, for any cry. The sun shone outside, but we'd lose the light in an hour or so. It mattered not though, because we had them.

This was the last of the tunnels. We had gone into each of them, one by one, all through the day while the devils slumbered. Each had given forth only rubbish and empty burrows. This, then, is where the fiends resided. We would take them unawares and put an end to their nightly slaughters.

"Il est pas mal du tout," a voice, low and feminine, cooed. I jumped from my post and as I turned to face her a stone clipped me across the head and I fell to blackness.

When I woke, someone was screaming.

My head ached fiercely, and my ears rung so that even the screams were hard to make out at first. I was lying against something hard and cool. I fought to open my eyes.

"Shh, shh, mon petit oiseau." A band like iron curled around my waist as I struggled to sit up. The voice was the same as before. I hadn't properly noted how beautiful it was the first time. It was full, rich, reminding me of honey and cream in some intangible manner.

The screaming began again. I struggled against the restraints holding me in place, desperately attempting to force my vision back to singular coherence. I blinked hard and the world sunk back into place.

The space was dimly lit, and I had difficulty in making out any details of it all together. I was in a earthen chamber, no doubt part of the tunnels. It looked just tall enough for a man to comfortably stand and many times wider. Trunks and bedding lay scattered about. A torch flickered against the packed-dirt floor where it had been cast aside.

The screaming was coming from a shadowed mass near the back of the cavern. It moved and heaved with a tortuous, frenetic energy. It seemed to have many arms. A piece of it broke off and flew across the room, landing in the torchlight. It was the bloody remains of a human hand.

I screamed. I fought in a mad terror against my bonds, twisting and writhing like a wild animal caught in the hunter's snare. The band around me shifted, and suddenly my arms and throat were pinned so that I could not even thrash about.

"Hush now," the feminine voice came again, heavily accented in her use of English. A cool touch, hard like stone, brushed against my chin. With dawning horror, I realized that there were no bands of iron at all. I was merely being held against this woman –this vampiress—as if I were no more trouble than a recalcitrant child. I froze, too gripped with fear to even move.

"There now," she cooed. "C'est mieux."

I craned my neck to try and see her face and she shifted to allow it. The sight of her left me dumb.

She was radiant. More beautiful even than any painting or statue. Her eyes were red as roses and heavy-lidded, her lashes elegant fans beneath the flawless arch of her brows. Her skin was porcelain, unblemished by time or illness. Her hair fell in heavy dark waves, the only woman I'd ever seen wear it uncovered and loose about her shoulders. She smiled at me, her garnet-red lips full and inviting.

"Bonjour, mon oisillon."

A shrill scream followed by a sickening wet crunch echoed from the mass of shadow. I shivered, and suddenly her beauty seemed sharp and jagged. I longed to be away from her. I struggled again and she laughed and let me go. Stumbling to my feet, I balanced on the brink of flight but was too afraid to run with her dark gaze held upon me.

"Go on then, little birdie," she said with a flick of her hand. "Fly fast so I can chase you down." She flashed a grin, her terrible fangs sparkling white in the flickering light.

I ran.

I had no destination, no idea of where I was, but I could not go towards her and I could not go towards the screaming shadows. There was a single earthen tunnel left and I threw myself into it.

I ran with every ounce of strength in my body. I scrambled over the places where the earth rose up and slid down where it grew steep. At last, I could see light in the distance, and I broke out into a cellar, one I recognized as belonging to the Wilson's, their eldest son the second victim we had found drained of life in the past month. I dashed up the narrow stairs and threw open the cellar doors, launching myself out of the sunken room.

The night had come. Around me, only the streetlamps flickered with their small flames. I heard a voice call me in the distance, one I recognized with gladness.

"Sam—" the breath was snatched out of me. A stone-like hand closed around my throat and bore me to the ground.

Her face –radiant, awful—filled the whole of my vision. Her red eyes twinkled with delight.

"Mon," her ice-like finger stroked my cheek, "petit," then trailed across the other side, "oiseau," she tapped her iron nail to my lips. Her other hand was wrapped tight around my throat so that I could barely sip the air through it.

She grinned at me then. Her eyes were utter pits of swirling red and I knew that I gazed upon the face of evil.

"When you wake up, come and find me. I shall wait in our special place for you." She gave a girlish giggle and sank her fangs into my shoulder.

* * *

I hurled myself against the rocks. The stone split and shattered where I dashed my head against it. I yanked at my hair and rent my clothes to tatters. Standing under the cloud-covered night I screamed into the dark. I screamed and screamed, thinking my voice must give out, but it never did.

The fall hadn't worked. Nothing had worked. I was chained to this world, shackled in a cursed body, incapable of doing this one last good deed.

I collapsed into a pile of torn linen and rock rubble and buried my face in my hands. What more could I do?

"Help me, Father," I muttered into my hands. Over and over I spoke the words. "Help me. Help me."

My mind raced in loops, turning back upon itself and I muttered. I must look the consummate mad man, sitting in rock and cloth, skin bared, muttering to myself, trapped in my own twisted thoughts.

What should I do now?

All my knowledge of vampires had proven wrong in the past few days. In my giddy state, I began to fear that my father had never slain any vampires at all, but some common murderer instead. Or a mistaken innocent! Maybe my father was a liar and had made the whole tale up.

Whatever the truth, the result was that I had not even the faintest idea as to how I might find my death. The knowledge may be entirely unknown to mankind. The only beings that would know were the ones that…

The only beings that would know.

The vampiress's last words haunted me then. Was it even something I dared to attempt? I'd have to go back to London, to start; a proposition I loathed with every fiber of my being. My throat blistered with heat and I could not conscience how I was to make it into the city without attacking some poor soul.

Once there, what did I intend to do? Ask her for the secret to slaying her kind? She'd hardly be well inclined to give it to me, if her prior demeanor was any evidence of her character.

Perhaps I could bait her into a fight, so she might dispatch me herself. If not her, then one of her coven-mates may do it, if such a thing were even possible. I had to believe there was some way death could take me. There must be some weakness the vampire race possessed that I could make use of.

A dark notion whispered to me. What if I killed her instead? What if I went back and proved stronger than her, as men of the mortal variety often did when compared to the fairer sex? I could do what I had been unable to do before, what men in my father's confidence had died trying to do less than a week ago. I could have vengeance.

_Say not thou, I will recompense evil; but wait on the Lord, and he shall save thee._

I frowned at my odd, smooth hands. It would be a sin to go with vengeance in my heart, and yet I could not stop the feeling from bubbling inside me. I should seek the vampires' death in service of justice. Justice for the humans they had killed. Protection for the one's they would kill. I could learn their weakness by destroying them and then I could turn the knowledge on myself. That would be justice.

It would all be moot, however, unless I resolved to return to the city. Only by going back to find the coven would I have any chance of meeting my swift end.

I stripped away the ruined remains of my coat, vest, and shirt. In only my breeches and boots, I felt like a wild beast of the wood. The sky opened, and rain began to fall as I waded into the water and started my long swim back to London.

Like I was an honored guest of the finest breeding, Patty insisted on serving my generous portion of stew in her best china bowl. My father was already tucking into his portion. Hannah, set on the other side of the table, happily smeared mashed peas across her face. Patty had tucked a large bib into the girl's collar, and it was already catching spots of green as they fell from Hannah's chubby fist. How unusual, I thought, for Patty to serve the babe a pauper's food like peas.

There were peas in the stew as well. I saw my father discreetly pick them out when he thought Patty wasn't looking. The little terrier snapped them up as they fell off the table. I thought of Patty's seven children and multitude of grandchildren. Hannah's mother had been lost to a kick from a horse but had been the picture of health every day before. I dipped my spoon into the beef stew and made sure to scoop some of the peas in as well.

The sun rose and set as I swam. In twilight, I reached my destination and lurked there under the busy docks as the boats came in. Night fell, and I was free to creep about the city.

I took pains to not breathe even a sip of London's air. My hearing made me an excellent sneak, and I avoided those who worked nights with effortless ease. Would that the same ease could be obtained in avoiding my thirst.

Though I could not smell, the burning in my throat grew to an agonizing magnitude. Apparently, the mere thought of being near humans was enough to set it ablaze. It suddenly occurred to me that I had not eaten anything in the past week. The only drink I'd taken had been during my repellant attempt to drown myself. This lightened my already feather-soft step. With a little good fortune, I might starve to death.

I wanted to laugh. My death had become an event whose mere idle contemplation brought good cheer.

Moving as swiftly as my unnatural powers made possible, I found myself at the place of my mortal death in no time at all. The blood, if there had been any, had been scrubbed from the cobble stones. Even with my excellent eyes, I could see no trace of it left.

"Mon oisillon." My head snapped in her direction fast as light. I had not heard her at all, and even as she approached, I could only hear the faint pad of her footfall if I focused all my attention upon it.

She was as lovely as I remembered but with more detail to her, as if I had only seen a painted likeness before and I now beheld the actual woman. She had no lines or defects, but her face developed a texture that had been missing when I looked on her with human eyes.

Her beauty was flawless, but without mortal terror blinding me I could see that her dress was anything but. Like myself, her clothing seemed to have been woefully mistreated. Her gown, which may have been quite fine at one point, was ripped and tattered at the hem. Her bodice was laced with leather laces from a set of boots and one of the sleeves of her gown had been torn away at the elbow.

We must have looked a pair. Me, half-naked for all God and creation to see, her in her stained and battered gown unsuitable even for rags. This was the life of a vampire, I thought. They live like rats beneath the earth, slowly losing everything about themselves that was once human. Death would be a mercy for us both.

She was close enough to reach if I decided to lunge for her. She stopped and tilted her head to one side, a silken fountain of brown waves spilling over one shoulder.

"Or is it mon faucon now that you have talons of your own?" She smiled at me, attempting a guise of compassion but with little success. "How very scared you must have been. You look quite wild." She looked me up and down, then frowned. "Have you not been feeding often?" Though nominally addressed to me, she appeared to be speaking mostly for her own benefit.

She began to circle me, and I turned as well to keep her always in my sight. I thought of what I should say first to her.

A fatal flaw in my plan made itself known at that point. It was so baldly obvious that Samuel would have caught it in seconds and then laughed at me if he'd been able to consult.

If I wanted to talk to her, I'd have to take a breath.

The depth of my short-sightedness was mortifying. I couldn't risk a breath in the middle of London, but I had no means of communicating with her otherwise unless I planned on resorting to pantomime or written notes. I doubted she'd have the patience for either.

"Faucon…" She cajoled me, her voice lilting in a singsong that was pleasant even to my improved ears. "Have you come to chastise me with your silence? Do not mourn your mortality too much. The memories of it fade easily and soon you will care for them not a whit." She reached out to touch, but I shied away. Should I attack her? Fall back to my plan of having her kill me in combat? She laughed at me, placing her fine-boned hands on her hips.

"What are you…" The mirth bled from her face. Her eyes drew up in a frown that managed to be as equally lovely as every other expression she'd made. She squinted, fluttered her lashes a few times, and then gasped. "You have not fed at all!" She stepped back from me as if I was the one to be feared. Her glare was hot upon me. "You are holding your breath!" Her voice was as accusatory as if she had found me stealing her silver. She rocked back on her heels and shook her head. "If I did not see it, I would say such a thing is impossible."

She was pensive then, statuesque in her contemplation as I stood mutely by. I needed to take the opportunity and attack her, but I still hadn't an idea what her weakness was! What if all we did was make a racket to bring the slumbering neighbors from their homes. How would I protect them from her? How would I protect them from me?

Slowly, a cruel grin spread across her face. She turned to me and gleefully clapped her hands as my stomach started to sink with heavy dread.

"Oh, petit oiseau, what a thought I have had! The most wondrous idea. You will love it, I'm sure." She flashed me a wink. "Now you must keep up, or I shall have all the fun to myself." Like a flash, she was off, a streak of white and brown. I rocked back in surprise before bounding forward to follow. Foreboding fought with the fire in my throat as to which could cause me the greatest anguish.

To my surprise, I caught up to her easily. It was a relief to realize I was faster than her. If she meant to do evil, which I felt sure she did, I would be able to race ahead and warn her victims off. Maybe this meant I was stronger than her too. I might be able to stop her if I put myself to it.

She danced along, slipping through streets and alleys, as adept at avoiding humans as I had been earlier that night, but doing so with incredible haste. I chased her, unsure if I ought to stop her now or at our destination. The neighborhood was my own, but I couldn't guess where she was leading me.

Then, she turned onto my street and I knew her intent. Furious, I lunged for her, but she'd expected this and was darting away before I could wrap my arms around her. She laughed again and I wanted nothing more than to rid the earth of that sound forever.

I swung at her. She ducked swiftly away, nimble as a boxer.

She was at the door to my father and I's townhouse. Blithely ignoring the wooden cross that decorated it, she ripped the wood door from its hinges, the iron shrieking in protest. I swung for her again, but my fist hit the door as she brought it round her as a shield. She shoved me back, then tossed her shield at me and darted in.

I had to warn Father! Did I risk the breath to yell? I raced after her.

She was on her way up the stair, but I caught her this time. I grabbed her round her middle and hurled us both to the floor. We crashed into the parlor table, knocking it over. In the upstairs bedroom, I heard my father wake with a shout. I had to hold her off. I had to get both of us out of here! How had she even known to come here at all?

"Do not be so rough," she laughed, seemingly unfazed by my grip on her. "You will see. What a perfect beginning for your new life this will be! One little smell and you shall rip the old man's throat out yourself." Her voice was rich, soothing to hear even as I fought to keep her on the floor. "Ah, but I only wish I had been able to do the same for my Père."

"Carlisle? It that you?" My father was on the stairs, his silver blade in one hand and a candlestick held high in the other. I turned my face to him on instinct and he saw. His hands shook and the light flickered with the movement. "My son… No, no…"

A deep abiding shame settled in my breast. I had let my father see his only son lost to the devil. His worst fear had been made manifest.

My moment of sorrow cost me dearly. The vampiress threw me off, and I was too clumsy to follow. She caught my father round the throat, as she had held me a week prior. He gasped for air, unable to cry out. He hadn't even had time to raise his blade.

"Mmm. As much as I would like to drink you dry for thinking you could ever harm us, prêtre, that honor instead shall go to your handsome son." She leaned in close to my father's ear. "You do like what I've done with him, don't you?" My father jerked in her grasp.

She laughed, lifted a single finger, and sliced a neat line up my father's neck.

The blood welled up and beaded down.

I feel to my knees under the agony. The coal in my throat had been stoked to a roaring fire, equal to the one that had burned the humanity from me. Tears sprang into my eyes and I clasped a desperate hand over my nose and mouth. She was laughing at me.

I looked up, for what reason I know not, but as soon as I saw the red at my father's throat, I was helpless. The thirst pulled me to my feet. I wavered there, teetering like a dockyard drunk. The red glistened, fragrant and pure. One sip would be the balm to every ailment. A mere taste would take all of the fear I had endured, the pain I had suffered away.

I staggered forward. So fixated was I that I didn't even hear the footsteps outside.

"Rev. Cullen, what in goodness name is going on? You've woke the whole household."

Patty Lowell, my neighbor and devoted busybody, stood in our doorway as witness to my lowest hour. She was in her night cap and gown, a blue wool shawl drawn across her shoulders, amazement writ clear across her wide face.

"Good heavens. Young Carlisle?" She took a step toward me and I flinched. Her greying brows drew together. Then made note of our guest, hand clenched round my father's throat, and recoiled. "You there! Let go of the reverend this instant! I shall call for the constable." Patty began to back away, gazing about as if she expected the constable to present himself forthwith.

Patty had distracted me, but the sound of blood dripping was pulling at my attention with ever strengthening fervor. I looked back to my father.

The vampiress was growing impatient.

"Come along, mon oisillon. If you don't eat him, I shall," she taunted, prodding the wound so it gave forth greater issue. The blood shimmered in the candlelight as my father trembled.

How sweet it would taste. How soothing it would be after the fiery crucible I had endured. An end to my excruciating pain.

"No! What are you doing up? Back in the house with you," Patty shouted.

My head turned, and as surely as I had not been able to divert myself from the dripping blood, I was unable to look away as the smallest Lowell ran to her grandmother's side, clutching her hands into the folds of her nightdress. That little fair head turned and regarded me with interest at first, and then with beaming recognition.

"Meer Cunnen!" she exclaimed.

"Ah!" The vampiress gave a delighted sigh. "It looks like I will have a treat of my own as well tonight."

Patty wrapped a quick hand around the child's wrist, but I didn't see any more. I'd turned back and lunged for the vampiress's throat.

She hadn't expected it, but she didn't loose her grip on my father and all three of us went backward into the stairs. I got my hand round her wrist and dug my fingers as strongly into the meat of it as I could. Rather than the snap of bone, the very skin of her wrist began to fracture, broken stone under a chisel. Her free hand slashed across my face, but I ducked away from most of it.

She snarled, and I heard a wrenching crunch. I sunk my fingers further into her stony flesh. Her grip released and my father slid down, lying still at the foot of the stair.

She tried to push me off, but I had the better position and superior strength. I reared up and sank my fangs into her neck. She shrieked at the pain, but I didn't let up. I pulled back, taking a chunk of her throat with me. She floundered in my arms.

A fugue settled upon me and, as if possessed, I set into a course of action I had no conscious memory of choosing. I ripped her limb from limb, there in my father's parlor. When she lay in pieces on the floor, I stood back and admired my work. The marble chunks of her lay scattered around me. The scraps of her dirty dress and swaths of brunette hair were the only evidence that the remains before me did not belong to a decimated statue.

My thoughts turned toward my father and I looked to him.

Patty was kneeling at his side, her hands upon his neck and mouth. I hadn't noted her entrance. Had she put Hannah back to bed and then returned? It couldn't have been more than ten minutes since I started my grim work.

She turned to me with solemn eyes and slowly shook her head.

"He's gone, Carlisle. I'm so sorry," she said. "The demoness broke his neck." She settled him upon his back and gently slid his eyelids closed.

I was shivering, tears escaping down my cheeks even before she spoke. She gazed sorrowfully around the room.

"What dreadful things that have come to pass."

She stood with some difficulty, leaning against the wall. For a moment, I could hear her ageing joints creaking with strain. She gazed down at my father's body for a long moment. He did not look peaceful, but he did not look pained either. He was so still.

"I'll tell the constable there was a break-in. A thief with murder on the mind," she said.

She raised her head and took care so that her eyes caught mine and held them.

"What's transpired here is beyond my understanding, Carlisle. But I do know that one meant us ill. I can see from your eyes that the devil has tried to take you. You're a good man, and he always wants God's best souls, but tonight you resisted him. You saved my Hannah."

Patty walked to the door, and as she passed, she placed her hand upon my shoulder. It lingered there, the heat of her palm bleeding into my coldness.

Without a word more, she left me and exited what had once been my home. I could hear her talking to people on the street. More neighbors who'd been drawn to the racket. I'd have to steal out the back to avoid being seen.

I could not bring myself to flee yet and knelt by my father's body. I placed my shaking hand on his unstirring one, warm with the life that had so recently faded.

I took a breath.

"I'm sorry, father. _Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die._" The voices at my back were louder now. Patty could not stall them much longer. I gathered the bits of the vampiress together in a linen sheet and resolved to dump them in any cesspit I happened across.

And, so, I left my father there on the parlor floor and like a thief, I stole from my house and into the night.

* * *

I knew now the key to my destruction, but I had yet to make any use of it. Every time I took a mind to tear myself apart, I would think of little Hannah and her small face lighting up as she saw me. I envisioned the way Patty had touched my arm even after she'd seen me enact such terrible violence. I pictured the vampiress, the woman who'd cursed me and whose name I'd never learned, laying in pieces on the floor, her bloody rampage brought at last to an end.

I had been made into an unholy monster, and instead of losing my mind to thirst, I had kept myself. My will had stayed my own in the face of immense temptation. By the grace of God, I had not yet harmed a single human.

I began to believe once more. My soul was still my own. God had not cast me out at all. He'd guided me away from the innocent when I was weak, turned my attention from my father's blood, and given me the strength to protect a grandmother and child from a murderess.

If only it were not for this unquenchable thirst.

In the days after my departure, I had fled to the woods and sought shelter in a cave far from any person or dwelling. I waited with my newfound hope for the thirst to abate, but instead it only grew stronger. Day to day, week to week, the torment of my parched throat steadily increased.

I could not feed, but I likewise could not sate the hunger. In time, I resigned myself again to death. I was fated to starve.

I wasted away in my cave, comforting myself with precious memories. As the vampiress had promised, they grew distressingly dim as time progressed. I clung obsessively to the ones I wished most to keep. Samuel's gruff honesty. My father's rare smile. Hannah's inquisitive stare. Patty's hand on my shoulder.

One day, staring up at the damp ceiling of my cave, I thought of Charlie Lowell telling me his mother had healed him and his brother of measles. How had she done it, I wondered. Had Patty stumbled across some miraculous cure by herself, or purchased one from some knowledgeable but secretive physician? Or did he mean that she had simply been an excellent nurse and God had done the rest?

I wondered what it was that caused the measles in a person. Did the illness float on foul air? Patty had somehow kept herself and her family from its spread. I remembered the physician Father had brought to tend to my own bout had insisted I remain sequestered from others. Was it passed from skin to skin by touch?

I reached my hand up to feel along the smoothness of my cheeks. The pocked scars had been my constant companion and souvenir since I battled the dangerous illness in my youth. The little scars had spotted the right side of my face, down my neck, and across both shoulders. They were all gone now, wiped clean by the curse.

A noise in the underbrush drew my focus and I idly tilted my head to the side, too weary to even lift myself up. A deer raised her head and regarded me with cool caution. I could see her veins beneath her skin, pumping her precious blood throughout her body.

The furnace in my throat roared.

She sensed the danger and turned to bound into the safety of the woods.

But I was faster.

* * *

**End Note:**

One last note on Measles: Patty does not have a miracle cure. She's simply very lucky, observant, and practicing well-balanced nutrition at a time when almost no one else was. However, you, lucky reader, DO have a miracle cure for measles! During 2000-2017, measles vaccination prevented an estimated 21.1 million deaths worldwide. It's a highly contagious, deadly disease. Please consult your Doctor about vaccination for yourself and your children.

Don't forget to leave a comment and kudos. Thanks again for reading!


	2. London 1665

The man's body was as heavy as a goose feather, but I had to perform lifting him as if it caused me great difficulty. The deception was necessary as using my true strength would have drawn instant attention. I set the man gently upon the cart and folded his hands – gruesome black and deformed yellow—across his breast.

I could not give them all a proper burial, but I could at least show them this last kindness.

The night was young, and while a year ago the streets would have bustled with travelers at this early hour, tonight there was only myself and a lone lantern-lighter slowly making his rounds from post to post. He looked in my direction and I touched my hand to my mask on habit, checking if the cloth was still in place over my nose and chin, but his eyes passed over me as if I were no more than a shadow.

It was one of the few benefits of carrying the dead. No one wished to see me and their gazes slid over me like water around stone.

The other benefit was that people wanted to talk to corpse bearers as often as they wished to look upon them. On most occasions, I would go the entire night without need for a single throat-tickling breath. Even with my thirst quenched by the blood of deer, the delicious aroma of human life still set my mouth to watering. It was safer to not breathe.

The man's wife had long disappeared back into her house. A searcher had already marked the front door of her property in paint. A large red cross and the words "Lord have mercy on us" warned all who passed by: this was a house touched by plague.

I picked up my cart, laden with the corpses of seven lost souls, and made my way toward the pits at the edge of town.

The city was tomb-quiet as I passed among its streets. With my unnatural hearing, I could tell many of the houses lay abandoned, their tenants either fled or dead from the plague. The few with occupants whispered in fearful voices or issued forth pitiable, wracking coughs.

A man walking along the pavement, sack slung across one shoulder, caught sight of me and darted into a side street to avoid our crossing paths.

I continued up and out toward the city's walls, joined increasingly by a few weary men, grouped in pairs, pulling dead-carts of their own as we processed toward the burial site.

I could hear the men talking between themselves and part of me longed to join them. It was too great a risk, though. I was safer alone.

The graves of the burial site were no more than large holes dug into the ground, already piled with bodies of the dead. One man tipped his cart up and let the corpses roll into the pit.

I lifted the first body from my cart, a girl just on the cusp of womanhood, and carefully lowered her in, folding her hands and setting her as much to rights as I was able.

I went back for the next one, and the next one, until all seven lay shoulder-to-shoulder within the pit. No priest would be able to come pray for them tonight or the night after that.

Standing upon the edge of the pit, I crossed myself and gave a prayer in silence for their peace.

At once, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I knew with absolute certainty that I was being observed.

I heard something, a shifting rustle but no beat of the heart. My head snapped in that direction –too fast, I'd forgotten myself—and in shadow too dim for human eyes but clear to me, I saw the figure of a man leaning against a wall, watching me intently.

Red eyes: one of my own cursed kind.

He was frowning, but less with anger than confusion. He tilted his head to one side, raised a black eyebrow, and jerked his chin in indication that I should follow. Then, he turned and stalked, cat-like, away from the pits.

I did not know what to make of him. I hadn't seen another vampire since I'd dispatched she-who-turned-me a year and two months past. As best I could tell from my self-imposed solitude in the woods, the rest of my maker's coven had moved on just a month after our fatal battle.

This new one undoubtedly knew what I was but did not seem overtly aggressive. Wary but curious, I followed him, keeping alert for any hidden companions that may lay in wait to ambush me.

He led me off a way off from the pits and then turned suddenly into an empty house, not even needing force to enter as the building had been left unlocked. I followed him in to see the parlor had been left in disarray. A table had been overturned and the washing had been left within to mildew in its bucket. Sundry household items lay strewn about the floor. The owners had departed in a considerable rush.

I closed the door behind me and lingered at the threshold as the vampire sat himself in a high-backed wooden chair and kicked his worn boots up on to the leg of the overturned table. Despite his relaxed posture, he watched me with the focus of a hawk.

Rather than stand in the door like a beggar before the household master, I took the chair across from him.

We regarded each other in silence a moment.

I used the time to make inventory of his appearance. Like the vampiress who turned me and my own much-altered reflection, he was a winsome man of unnatural attractiveness. He possessed a fine, high brow and noble profile. He was dressed far better than the vampiress –my only example by which to measure him—in the garb of a respectable traveler. He wore a long buttoned vest under his wool coat, following the emerging fashion, and his breeches were cut close to his thighs. He wore no wig, and instead his shiny black hair fell just to his chin.

I dare say he was far better appointed than I, outfitted as a simple corpse bearer.

"You're an odd one," he said at length. His voice was low, rough, and in the familiar accent of a fellow Londoner.

Common courtesy demanded I reply to him, so I took my first breath of the day. Thank God I'd fed before coming into town.

"Compared to other men, I would say we are both odd," I said.

His frown deepened. His confusion was obvious.

"Not that. I mean, what's wrong with your eyes?"

This took me by surprise. I had little opportunity to make use of a mirror, but I did know that my once blue eyes had been red for several months after turning and were now alternatively gold or black, depending on how recently I'd eaten. The man had red eyes, like she-who-turned-me.

"I'm afraid I don't understand you," I replied, genuinely meaning it.

"You're a vampire but you've got eyes the likes of which I've never seen. Never seen them any color but red. And you were hauling plague bodies in a cart just now. I can't think what you mean by it."

He tilted his head to the other side. Increasingly, he reminded me of a falcon on a branch.

"Oh. I'm afraid I did not know red was the common color for our sort. They were red at first," I said, reaching a finger to my brow, "but now they mostly remain gold." I thought about it for a moment. "It may be due to my dining habits," I guessed.

"Dining habits?" he asked, dropping his feet from the table and leaning forward. His hawkish gaze bore into me. I could not remember ever being watched with such intensity.

"I dine on deer in the forest," I explained.

His studious frown transformed into a bewildered scowl. He rocked back in his seat as if I had physically struck him.

"What nonsense is that? Do you think to lie to me?"

I held up my hands placatingly and couldn't help but anxiously note the nearest window. Since first turning, I'd lost some of my speed and strength. Hopefully I still was fast enough to flee a enraged vampire, if needs must.

"It's no lie, good sir. I have a dwelling in the woods just North of here and feed upon the animals that wander it."

He squinted at me from beneath his dark brow. I made myself relax and met his gaze with as much open honesty as I could summon. In my youth, I'd often brandished this expression to get myself out of trouble with Cook or the parish women.

"Take the damned mask off," he said.

I did so, pulling it down around me neck and revealing my face. He sat back, folding his thick arms.

"A dwelling, you say?" He looked me up and down. "And you come into the city's at night to feed among the dying under the guise of burying the dead."

"No! Indeed not," I said, astonished. "I used to never come into town, but the suffering has been so great here these past six months that I could not sit idly by when I might help alleviate part of it. I have no fear of the disease, so it is nothing for me to help by burying the dead." I shot him a reproachful glance. "And I never feed from humans."

The man chuckled, his mouth curving up into the faintest hint of a smile.

"An odd one," he repeated, shaking his head. "I'm not here for you, though I could use your help. I'm tracking someone – a vampire. I don't know his name and caught only a glimpse of his face. I only know that he caused the death of someone who was kind to me once." A shadow passed over the man's face. "I intend to make him pay for it. But I haven't been in London for near a hundred years, The city's changed." He gave me an up-and-down examination. "You're a youngling to be sure, but you know the city. Have you seen any vampires come through in recent weeks? He'd look to be in his forties, with a silvered beard."

To my knowledge, no vampire had passed through London since my maker's coven fled. I certainly would have remembered any I crossed paths with, silvered beard or not.

"My apologies, but I have not. Unfortunately, you've picked the wrong helper," I said, slowly shaking my head. "I keep as well clear of people as I can. In fact, you are only the second vampire I've ever spoken too."

I'd surprised him. He tapped a thick finger against the chair arm.

"What became of your sire? He must have taught you something of our ways," he said.

This was a less comfortable topic for me. I turned as if something fascinating beyond the window had demanded my attention.

"She passed only a few days after I'd turned," I said, measuring my tone to keep it light and unassuming. It must not have been enough, for the man chuckled darkly at my answer.

"Ah, I see now. 'Passed', did she?" He gave me a knowing grin. "You've impressive control of your thirst for a youngling without a Sire who doesn't eat humans. If you're not lying."

He tilted his head back the other way. Maybe he was more like a great hunting dog than a falcon in manner.

"I regret I wasn't of greater assistance," I said.

He shrugged a shoulder, picking a broken leaf from his sturdy coat and brushing it away.

"You've been doing well staying out of our kind's way. Keep that up. It'll serve you well," he said, scrutinizing his coat for further untidiness. "And don't stay in one place too long or the humans start to catch on. Although," his eyes flited in my direction, "you might have more time than most. Don't turn anyone—newborns are dangerous. Never, ever turn a child."

I gasped aloud at this, horrified beyond words at the thought. It had never occurred to me that such an evil act could be committed. He smiled grimly, satisfied by my reaction.

"Follow those rules and you'll live a while longer yet," he finished.

The man stood and I followed, feeling like the host readying to show my guest out. He strolled past me, pulled the door open, then turned back to me.

"My name's Alistair." He was less imposing then. Uncertain, as if he was out of practice with introductions.

"Carlisle Cullen," I replied, attempting graciousness.

"Be well, Carlisle. If you see that vampire I'm looking for, run. He's killed our kind before."

With that, he was out the door and down the street in the blink of an eye. I watched him go, his warnings –the only mentorship I'd received from our kind—playing over in my mind.

It was the most equanimical interaction I'd ever had with another vampire. To my surprise, I found I'd missed having conversation. I hoped to see him again.

0-0-0-0

"Come, ye blessed children of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world."

We bowed our heads. The minister stood at the head of the freshly covered-over pit, mask tied tight around his face. The soil laid over the bodies was dusty red.

"Grant this, we beseech thee, 0 merciful Father, through Jesus Christ, our Mediator and Redeemer," the minister said, looking up from his book to the mourners: myself, two women, and a gentleman. There were over twenty souls buried in the ground before us.

"Amen," we replied.

**"****The **grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore." He crossed the air.

"Amen," we said.

The service concluded. The minister hurried away. As one of the few priests left in the city, he was kept constantly busy tending to the dying and praying over the dead.

The gentleman and one of the women likewise departed together. The last mourner, a red-fingered woman with wiry black hair escaping her cap, stayed behind. She lingered there for several minutes, and with no mask upon her face I began to worry for her health.

It was well after sundown. Quite late for her to be out on the streets alone.

The itch in my throat was barely a scratch. Feeling flush with doe's blood and confident in my willpower, I resolved to speak to her.

"Miss," I said, approaching her slowly and leaving a generous space between us.

She looked up at me and I decided to lower my mask so she may have better read of my face. Her eyes went wide, and I thought—with a little bitterness—that my face had never elicited this kind of awe in its human edition.

"I don't mean to intrude, but may I see you safely to your next destination?"

A year ago, she almost certainly would have had a companion out with her after dark, but it may very well be that her usual companions rested now in the mass grave before us.

She glanced me over.

My appointment was that of a humble workman in a hemp shirt and frayed doublet, my wool stockings inexpertly repaired by my own hand, and my cap discolored on one edge. Yet, in the human eye, beauty will excuse a hundred sins and my unnatural face overpowered the meanness of my clothing.

She smiled politely, though sorrow clung to her like a shroud.

"Yes. Thank you, Mister…"

"Cullen, miss," I said before it occurred that I might want to give a false name. Yet, with all the turmoil in London I doubted anyone was still looking for the late Rev. Cullen's missing son.

"Missus," she corrected. "Sarah Calvin. I'm heading to Gilford St."

I gestured for her to lead the way, and she set a brisk, for a human, pace as we left the misery of the pits.

"Who were you burying tonight, Mr. Cullen?" she asked.

Her demeanor was so downtrodden that I had not expected her to make conversation, and the question caught me a little off guard.

"No one," I said.

I had no gift for dissembling and was in the inconvenient habit of being plainly truthful. She looked askance at me and I wished I had thought to make up an answer.

"Who were you saying goodbye to?" I asked, deflecting from my misstep.

"My husband." Her eyes were dry as she said this, though her lip trembled. "I am widow now."

"My condolences for your loss," I replied.

This brief bit of conversation seemed to have drained her remaining energy, and she retreated into introspective quiet. I was content to let her keep her thoughts, and we traveled along in silence for another two streets.

"I have been cursed," she announced.

I flinched.

Her choice of words alarmed me. Quickly, I re-appraised her. She had a heartbeat, breath, the slow, lulling noise of blood through veins… My throat itched and I swallowed heavily to soothe it. Ms. Calvin was thoroughly, tryingly human.

She had not noticed my unrest and continued.

"We were six of us, at the New Year," she said. "Four lost to the plague and one to senseless violence. And now there is only me." Her head lowered, gaze fixed upon the filth of the street.

"Have you a place to go? Relatives in the country?" I asked.

"Distant ones. My Uncle left for France ten years ago. But even if I could write to him and secure a place, I would never get the papers I need to leave the city."

This was the unfortunate truth for many still trapped within London's walls. Even if a clean bill of health could be acquired, one would need to bribe the magistrate for travel papers, and then the guards at the gate for passage out. Unless Mrs. Calvin had come into a great deal of money recently, she would never be able to afford the exit price.

I imagined how I might scoop her up and bound us both over the wall in a single leap the way I did to move between the woods and the city. This, however, was pure fantasy. Mrs. Calvin would rightly be terrified to learn her current companion was a being formed from evil. There was no way I may safely reveal my true nature to her, even in pursuit of her benefit.

The streets were eerie, abandoned and untended. A year ago, these streets would have been populated with workmen and other night-owls even at this late hour.

Another corpse bearer, accompanied by a link man bearing a torch, was loading a body onto his cart in front of a cross-marked house. With a start, I realized I recognized the man standing by observing them. It was one of my father's parishioners, Mr. Thomas Mills. I quickly ducked my chin and turned away as if engaged in conversation with Mrs. Calvin. She noted my odd movement with a furrowed brow but blessedly made no comment.

Without my noticing, we had wandered onto my old street! Truly, my human memories had faded quite a bit for I had not even recognized the place until I saw Mr. Mills. Just up ahead stood the home of my childhood. It had evidently been sold, for I could hear new residents moving within. Thankfully no red cross or other warning marked the door.

I turned my attention to the house adjoining my old residence: the Lowell's home. It was shut up tight, also with an unblemished door. With relief, I concluded that Mrs. Patty Lowell had again employed her peculiar brand of luck and prescience. She must have shut the house and taken her family to the country before the city closed in upon itself.

Little Miss Hannah would be about four now. I hoped she was well.

"You gaze so intently upon the houses here, Mr. Cullen. Do you know them?" Mrs. Calvin asked.

"Yes, I did. Some time ago. It looks as if they've left town."

"Wise folk. Leaving a tomb like this. We all either perish in our sickbeds or a torn asunder by murderers in the street," she muttered.

This brought me up short and my step faltered. Mrs. Calvin shot me a curious glance over her shoulder.

"Torn asunder by murderers?" I repeated, fearing her reply. Mrs. Calvin's lip trembled, a bitter anger coloring her wan cheeks.

"My poor sister. Untouched by plague, but she went out one evening and did not come back. We looked for days, my Henry and I, but did not find her. The exertion was too much for Henry, and he took ill. The constables –those we could find—could not be bothered to help us. Eventually, I found a cellar door with a whole arms-length of her dress torn and wedged between the slats. The horror of what I found inside is indescribable, Mr. Cullen." Her face bled of the little color it possessed. "Excuse me, but I don't wish to speak on it anymore."

I was too stunned to press her for details, and we concluded our journey without speaking further. I deposited Mrs. Calvin at her lonely, cross-marked home on Gilford St., and then wandered dream-like for another several blocks, alone with my thoughts.

Mrs. Calvin's tale had left me quite disturbed. I could not shake the certainty that this was the work of my own cursed kind.

Was this the work of Alistair? Mrs. Calvin had not told me when her sister perished, but it had only been three nights since I met the brusque vampire. From Mrs. Calvin's manner, I had the impression that the murder was not immediately fresh. Alistair also seemed far too preoccupied with his own privacy to be leaving behind grisly displays and torn dresses.

Was it then the vampire he was tracking? The one I should run from? Or was it another vampire entirely, a newcomer? The city was large and though I'd seen no traces of other vampires in the past year, that did not mean they were not present. I'd spent much of that time alone in the woods, so it would have been no great feat to hide from my notice.

I thought of going back and asking her where her sister's body had been found, but her distress at being made to relive the events prevented me.

She had said it was a cellar door leading out onto the street. Somewhere likely nearby her home…

What was I doing? I couldn't go looking for a strange vampire. My strength and speed were not what they were during my first few months after my change and I had no idea what I may encounter. The vampire Alistair hunted was dangerous enough to require warning away from. That alone should be enough to convince me to keep my distance.

No, I wasn't going to do anything about it. I'd go back to my cart and focus on doing what I could to help by caring for the dead.

0-0-0-0

I forced myself to resume my nightly routine. I was doing good work as a corpse bearer. There was no need to play at being a constable.

Since I began working a month ago, I had endeavored to stay as clear of the other workers as I could, for their sakes.

However, after the success of walking Mrs. Calvin home, my confidence was much improved. I felt I had the control to safely converse with them.

In the back of my mind where I was resolutely not thinking about it, a small voice whispered that I might also ask after unusual deaths. Of all those who still resided in London, corpse bearers were well situated to have knowledge of unusual demises.

No, I told myself. I was just going to talk to them for the company. Mrs. Calvin's poor sister was none of my business.

I joined a group of three men for their midnight meal –claiming a tooth ache for why I did not partake—and spent most of the time listening to the recounting of their recent woes. All were from families too poor to leave and they could do nothing but wait in fear for the illness to strike.

Naturally, we struck upon the subject of cures.

"Harry went to a wise woman last year who told him the ground bodies of three spiders in milk would keep the plague at bay," Charles said.

Charles was a freckled lad who suffered mightily from spots upon his chin. He was also an avid if unrefined conversationalist.

"Hogwash." George, an older man stooped with labor and missing two of his teeth, spat upon the ground. "If spiders kept out the plague, the whole of my street would be healthier than horses."

"No, you've got to eat them," Charles insisted. George gave a disgusted snort.

"I heard there's a physician who's got the cure," Daniel said.

Daniel spoke very rarely, in contrast to the other two, and his voice was softer than I'd expected. He was a large man, as tall as I and half as broad again. He chewed with deliberate slowness through his sausages and bread.

He held the groups attention. George motioned impatiently for him to go on.

"Not English, but came to treat the sick," Daniel said. This aroused a round of murmurs. "Can't treat everyone, but it's said if you've the right humors, he can make it so the plague don't hurt you. It's where John went, after he caught it," Daniel said, taking another slow bite.

He chewed for a moment. Swallowed.

"John had correct humors so the Black Death passed out of him."

George shook his head in disbelief.

"Nonsense, all of it. I've not seen John for two weeks. The lad is dead," George asserted.

"John isn't dead," Daniel said, shaking his head. "Saw him just three nights ago, picture of health."

George's weathered face was pinched with disbelief.

"I wish I could see your physician," Charles lamented, turning morosely back to his meal. "All my wages go to my Da." He stabbed at a chunk of goose with his knife.

"No physician'd see you on our wages anyway, boy," George said. "Specially not one with a cure."

"John said it was free," Daniel said.

This drew a loud, contemptuous laugh from George and incredulous stares from the rest of us.

"For free?" I asked, amazed.

It wasn't at all unusual to hear the few remaining wise women, apothecaries, and physicians advertising their miraculous-sounding and often useless cures, but for one to offer their services for free was unheard of.

"He's not from St. Bartholomew's hospital, is he?" I asked. The House of the Poor was the only place I could think where free treatment might be obtained.

The whole story sounded far too good to be true to me. The promise of a free remedy was probably a lure to draw in the desperate, and then charge them lavishly for some other component or examination.

Daniel shrugged, chewing steadily away. He seemed entirely unbothered by the prospect of a free, effective cure to the plague that ravaged the city.

"Well, where do we find him?" Charles eagerly demanded. The boy had no difficulty summoning enough excitement for the both of them.

Daniel shrugged again. Charles looked ready to burst, so great was the boy's agitation.

"Where did John say he was going to meet him?" I asked, rephrasing the question for Charles' sake. "At a hospital?"

Daniel paused to think about this.

"No. No hospital." He scratched his neck with a meaty finger. "Place on Castle Alley, I think."

"Castle Alley," Charles repeated, nearly breathless with excitement.

George gave a derisive snort.

"Bloody charlatans. Won't catch me putting my last shilling into the pocket of a thief. If those fool physicians had any cures, do you think it would have got this bad, boy?" He shook his head. "No, there's no cure for this but prayer. Beg God for forgiveness, boy, that He may take our immortal souls to Him when we die."

"I'm not going to just give up and die," Charles declared.

Unbidden, Mrs. Calvin's sister again came to mind. Since I'd learned of her, she had never wandered far from my thoughts. Was she like Charles or George, I wondered? Had she surrendered to her untimely death, or had she fought with every ounce of life in her?

I shook my head to clear it and forced myself back to the conversation at hand.

I was not going to go looking for Mrs. Calvin's sister's death.

0-0-0-0

I started by looking for cellars with broken or missing locks. Since those who could had long since fled, while the rest slowly died, the city was quite unguarded everywhere except the walls. A coven could easily move in a set up in any cellar, tunnel, or abandoned house they liked and attract no notice at all.

Gilford St. had quite a few street-facing cellar doors. After testing each, I learned that all but one were locked. The unlocked one held only mealy grain without a hole or tunnel in sight.

I tired the next street over the next night with similar results.

The night after that, I went to the other side of Gilford St., slowly spreading my search in a widening net.

The fifth night, I had just entered an abandoned house when I heard a single pair of boots on the street outside. Though I could hear footsteps, no heartbeat accompanied them. The boots stopped in front of the empty house's door. Slowly, the door swung open.

"What are you doing, youngling?" Alistair asked, his gruff voice a relief to my agitated nerves.

"Only looking around," I said, leaning a hip against the dining room table as Alistair entered the home and closed the door behind him.

"Looking around? Looking around…" He tapped a knuckled to his chin. "What are you looking for, young Carlisle?"

I shrugged, playing casual.

"I'm not sure. Just something I'd heard, about a human woman ripped to pieces. I'd wondered if…" I glanced curiously at him.

"It wasn't me, if that's what you're thinking. I keep to plague victims. Not very appetizing, but no one ever questions why they're dead. Good for staying unseen."

"Another vampire perhaps. Do you know any others in the city?" I asked.

He gave me a wolfish grin.

"Just the one. 'Ripped to shreds' is just his style, too."

This was disturbing but expected news.

"I understand that our kind must feed to survive," I began, "but I've no fondness for brutality. I think it may be in everyone's interest if such a vampire were to leave London."

"Well, then," Alistair said, grinning wide and hungry, "I think we may be able to help each other after all."

0-0-0-0

I led Alistair back to my woodland cabin to spend the day. He'd been spending his days under London bridge, which sounded like the foulest accommodations one could possibly imagine. I'd no idea why he didn't make use of the empty houses or cellars instead.

My cabin was a modest affair of which I was immensely proud. I'd built it myself, just outside the cave where I'd first made my happy discovery about the nourishing properties of animal blood. It had taken me the better part of the last year because I had been so dreadfully bad at constructing it. Eventually, I learned the way of it, but the entire ordeal had given me an immense respect for carpenters.

It was a single-room wooden structure that was always drafty, but as the cold was incapable of bothering me it made a perfect abode for my purposes.

Alistair did not seem impressed and gave it a critical eyeing before he could be persuaded to enter.

Once I'd gotten him inside, he gave another baleful look.

"Made it yourself, did you?" he grumbled. I sighed, long and put-upon, in response. "You weren't no carpenter in your mortal days, then."

He reached over and gave the little wood chair I'd constructed a shake. One of the arms popped off. He gave me a flat stare and I snatched it from his hand.

"Please don't break my things," I said. He mothed the word 'things' like it tasted bad. "And no, I was a parish priest's son. My father and I, we hunted vampires."

Alistair ceased his inspection of my poor furniture, and one black brow flew upward.

"That's a tale that'd be worth hearing," he said, sitting himself down upon my much-abused chair.

As there was nowhere else to sit, I settled on the rough-hewn cot I'd made. In retrospect, I've no idea why I went to the trouble as I never slept, nor felt even the least bit tired. When I had tried to sleep, it would not come to me no matter what I did.

Alistair sneered at my cot too. If I'd had blood for it, I would have blushed.

"It was an unhappy end," I said. "Both my father and she-who-turned-me perished in its conclusion. I was left as you see me now."

"I can't imagine many who hunt vampires live to have long and happy lives," he said, not unkindly. "Which is why the work we have before us is dangerous. We are not hunting just any vampire, but one who kills his own with regularity and ease. I think he must be gifted in some way."

"Gifted?" I asked.

"I keep forgetting how much of a babe in the woods you are. Gifted, as in possessing magic powers or talent. Some vampires are reborn with incredible abilities."

"What kind of abilities?" I asked, leaning forward. I had only ever heard of magic and never witnessed its actual performance.

"Well," he leaned back and frowned at the cross I'd hung on the bare wood wall of my little cabin, "like my own. I only have to think of someone, and I have a general feeling of in which direction I may find them."

"Anyone? So, if I were to leave the room and run for miles, you would still be able to tell which way I'd gone?" It sounded exciting, like the fantastical power a saint might possess.

"I doubt I'd need a gift to track you down," he gave me an amused smirk, "but yes, even if you were to cross the ocean, I'd still know which way you'd gone."

"Are you using your magic to hunt the other vampire?" I asked.

Alistair nodded.

"I'm trying to. I know which general direction he is, but it's harder in built-up places. There are so many mouse holes he can hide in. It's like hunting a rat in a sewer."

"And you don't know his name or any other distinguishing features?" I wondered if Alistair could be certain he was hunting the correct quarry on such a thin description.

"Yes. My…" the word eluded him for a moment, "friend, she said she'd met a man with a silver beard. She was excited about working with him on something. The next I saw her, she was burning to ash before my eyes. He must have just left before I got there. I went to chase him, but the sly bastard set his minions on me…"

A darkness crossed Alistair's expression and he lapsed into momentary silence. He turned his face to the South wall, though it was bare of any decoration.

"So, I only have to think, 'Where is the man who killed Bess?' and there is a tug at my naval that leads me to him," he said. "It's how I know the villain still resides in London."

"But you do not know exactly where?"

"No, he moves constantly from place to place without pause. He is working with purpose, and is almost never still," Alistair said.

Mrs. Calvin's sister died somewhere near Gilford St. Was her murder deliberate or incidental?

"What purpose would require tearing a human woman apart?" I asked.

Alistair shrugged at this.

"He's probably just an enthusiastic eater. Some vampires are." He said it as a matter of fact, but the words sent a chill down my spine. That such brutality could be dismissed as mere enthusiasm twisted my insides to knots.

"I want to know why he's keen on killing his own breed," Alistair continued. "She… Bess wasn't his last and I don't think she was his first, neither. He's got experience. Might even have a gift of his own. When we hunt him down, it'll be a fight. You ready for that?"

When I'd torn the vampiress—my sire—to pieces, I'd told myself it was justice for those she had killed. However, the true justice hadn't been in avenging old deaths, but in preventing new ones. This other vampire could have been like me, or even like Alistair who fed on the dying. Instead, he abducted women off the street and tore them to pieces in his 'enthusiasm'.

I stared straight on into Alistair's bloody eyes.

"I'm ready."

0-0-0-0

Alistair turned out to not be much of a talker. Once he had conveyed the heart of the matter, he felt no greater need to speak or fill the silence. I gathered very quickly that he was most accustomed to solitude, and we spent most of the day sitting quietly outside my little cabin. It was overcast, thankfully, so we did not make a spectacle of ourselves in the afternoon sun.

I found myself relishing the company. Though it'd only been a year I'd been in self-imposed exile, I found I missed the simple pleasure of companionship rather dearly.

I'd always been the sociable sort in my mortal life. Though undignified to admit, I lived for the verve and bustle of feast days. In all, I found myself ill-suited to the life of a hermit.

So, my new companion was a welcome guest whose sullen silence I endured with fondness. I was finding it hard to even be angry at his red-with-blood eyes. Alistair was a vampire who fed from the dying—thought I suspected this arose from a desire for anonymity more than a crisis of conscience. I told myself that he was like Charon, the ferryman to the Underworld of Greek legends, taking souls of the dead to their final rest.

I'd made quite the noble prince of him in my mind by the time evening fell and we were safe to return to the city. I believe he suspected some of my musings, for he kept tossing me the most amusingly bewildered stares as we journeyed through the forest.

I made a quick detour to catch a deer who crossed out path. I drank quickly, Alistair watching me with fascinated revulsion.

"Would you care to try?" I asked, wiping my mouth with an old cloth.

Alistair made an affronted face.

"No. I can hardly believe you are doing it. It smells right foul."

I shrugged and finished the rest of her. It was hardly tasty, but the blood kept my appetite suitably tamed.

We pushed on to London. On reaching the boundary, we waited for a break in the guard, jumped the wall, and slid seamlessly into nighttime London.

Alistair took the lead and started confidently in one direction. We'd gotten only a hundred paces in when he hesitated, floundering at a fork in the road. I waited for him to decide, but he only let out a frustrated sigh.

"He's moving again, energetic bastard," he grumbled. "I can't get a good feel for which road we should take."

"Well, that's the spire of St. Paul's that way," I pointed to the right at the cross visible just over the rooftops, "and St. Peter's that way," I pointed left. "If we stay left and follow this road straight down, it'll put us in the center of the city."

"St. Peter's," Alistair muttered, "that old pile of stones is still standing?"

Alistair seemed preoccupied by this revelation though I couldn't guess as to why. I wondered what London had looked like when he was last here a hundred years ago. He'd said the city had changed, and I wondered if it was exceedingly different now from the days of Queen Elizabeth.

We waited a moment at the fork, Alistair's face scrunched up tight in concentration, but nothing came of it.

"Perhaps we might have better luck trying the old-fashioned approach?" I said gently. Alistair raised an eyebrow. "He may have left more than one body in his wake. We can ask around. News of unusual deaths may have legs even in times like these."

Alistair gave me an incredulous stare that was becoming very familiar.

"You want to interview humans?" he asked, as if I had proposed that we ask the fish in the Thames.

"My control is much improved these days. It wouldn't bother me to speak to a human over much," I said.

"Your control! That's what you think concerns me?" He folded his arms and sighed. "No, Carlisle, I don't care a whit for your control. I do care about drawing undue attention to myself by asking suspicious questions of humans."

"It truly has been a while since you last interacted with humans, my friend," I said, unable to help my smile. "Regardless of where we started as mortals, our curse has made us far too comely to inspire any feeling as hard-hearted as suspicion. The other day, a young widow let me walk her home despite my impoverished dress based solely on the trustworthiness of my face. I think we will have no trouble in speaking to humans on this matter."

Alistair gave me a long, hard look.

"You walked a widow home after dark?" I rolled my eyes and earned a low chuckle for my efforts. "You are very odd, Carlisle Cullen. But I take your point. At this hour, our best bet at gossip will be a tavern, don't you think?"

"I agree. There's a lively one that should serve us well not far from here. Turn right."

0-0-0-0

While Boar's Head Tavern was open, one of the few taverns that could make such a claim that summer, the occupants were disappointingly few. Those sober enough to speak had no knowledge of unusual deaths and were quite happy to tell Alistair and I what we could do with all our nosy questions.

My theory about the human fondness for attractive faces was no match for the powers of unhappy inebriation.

We did, however, manage to secure a news-sheet from the barman, who said he had no more use for it. We sat down to read it together. It was two days old and spoke mostly of the plague numbers. There was a little about foreign affairs –a naval victory over the Dutch at Lowestoft, I had forgotten we were at war— but, unsurprisingly, nothing in the way of mysterious local murders.

"I miss the coffee-houses," I muttered to myself. They were only open during the day and, far more crucially, the more refined class that frequented them had all fled for the country or the continent.

"Do people still plaster hand bills all over Smithfield gate?" Alistair asked, voice low as he warily eyed the sullen drunkards.

"It's a gatehouse too now, but yes, quite often. It's worth a look," I said.

The Smithfield gatehouse was for St. Bartholomew's Hospital, the House of the Poor. They would be full to bursting with plague victims. I had difficulty believing any soul would go within 100 feet of the hospital without being compelled to, but our options were slim and shrinking.

For two immortals, fast as light and quiet as shadows, the run was a matter of minutes. As much as I disliked the constant thirst for mortal blood, being eternally cursed by evil certainly had advantages when it came to travel.

As I'd suspected, the Smithfield gate was uncharacteristically bare. A few rain-damaged bills remained advertising cures for the plague –Mssr. Martin's Healthful Elixir!—and one sobering bill for an undertaker, but past that the gate was near-barren.

"So much for that," Alistair said. He started to leave, intending to go I know not where, but I stopped him with a touch.

"I'm going to go inquire within," I explained, nodding my head toward the hospital.

He watched me in that nonplussed way of his and then shrugged. I passed under the gate and entered the nearest ward, Alistair trailing two steps behind like England's surliest valet.

We drew immediate attention on our entrance and a matronly nurse with a mask secured around her face waved us in, pointing to an empty bench before turning back to her patient. As I took a seat, I watched her tend her charge. It was a child, his neck covered in angry red and white blisters, his lips blackening in the final stages of the illness.

The nurse sat by his side, cooling him with compresses and dabbing his buboes in poultice. The boy was destined for God, but she ministered to him attentively, her eyes grim but determined where they peeked over her cloth mask.

"A good place for a meal," Alistair said, too softly for human ears.

I sat ramrod straight, too shocked to even shift my head. He rose from the bench and dusted off his knees.

"You inquire. I'll be right back," he whispered.

He sauntered away, slinking down the hall and out the door on the other side.

I pressed my balled fists into my thighs to stop myself from going after him. The fury I felt was completely unwarranted. Alistair had made me no promises and I had not asked, but I felt betrayed by this casual reminder of his appetite.

I shook my head and forced my fists to lay flat. He was like Charon, I fervently told myself, ferrying souls of the dead to the underworld. He would find someone like this boy, doomed and in pain, and he would send him on to God. It wasn't so bad. Not nearly as bad as it could be.

The nurse rinsed the compress and reapplied it to the child's forehead.

But he didn't have to feed from them at all…

Brisk footsteps, light but purposeful, drew me from my ruminations. A sister, older with deep wrinkles and a pronounced brow, approached me. I stood to meet her, removing my cap.

"Yes?" she asked, sharp and serious. "You're not ill, I see. Here for the bodies? You'll have to go around to the Western wall. We don't pay extra," she said.

"Ah, no," I started, a bit wrong-footed by her brusque demeanor. "I'm making inquiries into the death of a friend. May I take a moment of your time, sister?"

She squinted at me, suspicious. My theory about comely faces proved wrong yet again.

"Only if you can walk and talk at the same time," she said, already heading off down the ward. I kept pace easily but took care to make it look like she'd hurried me. "Sister Margaret. I'm the matron here." She picked up a bucket of used bandages with one arm, barely breaking stride. "What's your question?"

"Carlisle… Calvin. I regret that I am making your acquaintance under such dire circumstances." She glanced at me, then gave a curt nod. "My sister recently lost her friend, a young woman who died not of plague, but was slain in an inhuman manner. Please forgive me for speaking plainly of it, but she was torn asunder, limb from limb." This earned me a pause in her step. I took it as encouragement. "The constables have all either fled or are unmoved by our plight, so I alone am left to seek justice for her. Please, have you heard any tales of similar deaths, or anything unusual at all? She had lost considerable amounts of blood. Perhaps a death like that…"

Sister Margaret stopped walking and turned to face me. Her face had a certain stern implacableness to it, but I could hear the thudding of her heart and smell her anxiety –so delicious and sweet, like the first ripe fruit from the tree, no, pay attention—and knew she was afraid.

She looked around at the ward, packed full of the dead and dying, not a spare bed, cot, or pallet to be had. She frowned.

"Come with me."

We made straight away for an adjoining chamber. She opened the arched wooden door and revealed within a small study, complete with desk, books, and piles of paper. She shut the door behind us and set the basket on the floor. She walked to the desk and sank into the little wooden chair behind it.

There was one other seat in the room: a three-legged stool. She gestured to it and I obeyed.

"I've seen a case like your sister's friend before," she said.

I nearly leapt from the stool in excitement. At last, we had a heading!

She sighed and steepled her fingers together before her.

"A surgeon, one of the few who stayed at his post when we became overrun, Mr. Smith, went missing less than a fortnight ago. We hadn't the time to search for him and at first thought he had run like the rest of them. Then, just three days ago, Sister Mary was doing her rounds and saw blood upon one of our cellar doors. Fearing someone was injured, she opened it and discovered the remains."

Sister Margaret locked eyes with me, her whites showing all the way round.

"He was ripped limb from limb, just as you'd said. I've seen many types of death in my work, but that…" She looked away. "It was cruel. For no reason than cruelty's sake."

This was incredible news. I thought with hot irritation that Alistair ought to have been here for it, instead of off cutting short the last few hours of life some poor soul had left, but shrugged it quickly off. This was an unparalleled opportunity, the likes of which we may never have again.

"Was there anything else unusual about the scene? A tunnel perhaps? May I examine the cellar myself?" I asked in a rush.

"Your welcome to look. I'll have Thomas unlock it for you. No tunnels that I saw. The body was unusual, beyond the obvious, I mean," she said.

"Unusual in what manner?" I asked. "Drained of blood?"

"No, indeed. It was that the blood lay about in such a peculiar way. There was a great pool of it in the center of the room, but the pieces of poor Mr. Smith's body were scattered every which-way about. It took careful examination to even recognize the body as his.

"Blood goes all at once out from a body only if the wound is big enough or if the injured lays there for a long time. Then, once the blood is exhausted and gone completely from the body, the person dies. That there was blood in only one place upon the floor shows that Mr. Smith was left there or did bleed out very quickly and was…" she took a deep breath, "dismembered later after he was already dead."

"God have mercy," I murmured.

I tried in vain to imagine what purpose a vampire could have in killing a man, not drinking him dry, and returning later to dismember him but not dispose of the body.

"God have mercy on us all," Sister Margaret said, bowing her head. She released a great breath and rose from her chair all brisk business once again. "I'm afraid that's all I know, Mr. Calvin. I'll have Thomas unlock the cellar for you, if you like."

Rising, I nodded, and she went to the door and called out of it, giving orders to a passing sister to send Thomas along with haste. She held the door open expectantly. I took the hint and made my way out.

"Thank you for your time, Matron," I said.

She picked the bandages back up.

"If you catch the one that did it, Mr. Calvin," she said to the basket, "we'd be much obliged to you. If you'll excuse me."

Before I could make a reply of any worth, she had taken her leave, feet clip-clapping neatly down the hall.

I heard Alistair sneak up behind me. I was getting better at noticing my own kind, even when they were set on stealth.

"How'd it go?" he asked.

I turned to him with a smugly superior smile.

0-0-0-0

The cellar was completely uninteresting, but as Thomas had left after unlocking it, it did afford Alistair and I a measure of privacy.

I had recounted my conversation with the Matron on our walk over. Alistair was excited by the news and I could tell it was all he could manage to maintain the human façade for Thomas and not bound ahead with his immortal speed.

That there was so little of note in the actual cellar was disappointing.

"Something died down here," Alistair said with a sniff.

It did still smell faintly of blood and… something else. I took a long inhale myself, trying to parse the very distinct, vaguely familiar, but unplaceable odor.

"Venom," Alistair said with a grunt.

"Beg your pardon?"

The adder was the only venomous creature I knew of, and London was hardly known for its thriving adder population. Though given the number of rats and mice that infested the city, I would have readily tolerated a few of the beasts even in my mortal days.

Alistair was giving me the eye again. I was undecided on if I found it more endearing or annoying. As the moment, annoyance was winning.

"How have you survived through even a year's time?" Alistair lamented. "Venom is what makes humans into vampires," he explained with exaggerated slowness.

I squinted at him, feeling quite cross.

"You remember that burning feeling?" he asked. How could I ever forget it? "That was venom. Your sire bit you, forced it into your blood, and then you changed. If you ever wanted to turn someone –but don't, it's a deadly mistake, as your sire found out—then you'd bite them and give them your venom."

I raised my hand to my mouth, unsubtly feeling at my fangs. I did detect a hollowness at the end of them. Was that why the smell was strangely familiar?

Alistair was staring at the spot the scent of blood emanated most strongly from.

"I think he was trying to turn the human," he said.

"If this vampire wanted to change Mr. Smith and used his venom to do so, then how did Mr. Smith die a human?" I asked.

"Not all humans survive the change, Carlisle."

This was an unpleasant revelation. Having experienced it myself, I knew it to be an agonizing and pitiable death.

"He may have been attempting to change Mrs. Calvin's sister as well, then," I said to the blood-soaked ground.

Alistair appeared at first as if he was going to dismiss this suggestion out of hand, then reconsidered. His chin tilted in a way that indicated he was giving something his full consideration.

"It's possible," he at last conceded. "Can't think why he would want to. Newborns are damnably hard to control, given their strength."

"They're exceptionally strong?"

"Yes, for the first year or so, sometimes less. On account of all that human blood still in them. It makes them stronger and faster than the rest of us, but they're also mad with instinct. Some of them are so feral they can barely manage speech." He wrinkled his nose at me. "Makes you even odder by comparison, doesn't it?"

"That's a relief then," I said. Alistair looked surprised. "I thought I'd been losing my strength because of the deer blood," I explained.

Alistair made an exaggerated and wholly unnecessary pantomime of gagging.

"Foul. No idea how you can stand it. It'd serve you right to lose your strength for it," he groused.

"How can you possibly know?" I returned. "Have you tried the blood of animals? It may suit you more than you think. It's certainly far more inconspicuous than drinking from humans," I said, appealing to the thing I knew he valued most: his privacy.

Alistair spat dramatically on the ground.

"Smells bad enough that I don't need to try it. Hunting humans is just the natural way of it."

I ardently wished to argue the point but wasn't sure he'd tolerate much more prodding. A more gradual approach may serve me better with Alistair. I bit my tongue and decided to return to our mystery.

"So, our quarry turns humans into newborns, but kills established vampires like your friend."

"Her and others," Alistair said. "I've seen evidence of it. He had a fair few gifted newborns helping him when he killed Bess. I fought them and won, but only barely. With a little more experience, they could have torn me to powder."

"Gifted? All of them?"

"That I could tell, yes. One of them tore my finger off with this lash of wind she summoned." Alistair flexed his unblemished right hand. I presumed he'd gotten better. "Gift's aren't all that common for us. I'd say for every five of our kind, one will have a talent."

"I wonder what he promised them to get them to obey," I said.

"Blood, most like. Newborns are temperamental, to be sure, but there's really only one thing they want," Alistair explained.

The way my throat had burned those first months after turning, I readily believed him.

"If only we knew where he was," I said.

Alistair scowled and kicked at the dirt, digging a large furrow with his boot. I had not intended to critique his abilities, but he clearly struggled with frustration from the vampire continuing to elude him.

"If only that," he muttered darkly, then turned and flashed up the stairs and out of the cellar.

0-0-0-0

We spent another two nights together combing London for clues. Alistair grew more churlish with each unsuccessful night until I at last suggested that we part company for a bit to give him time to himself.

Alistair drew comfort from solitude and a few nights on his own seemed likely to improve his temperament.

I went back to my nightly work, hoping to turn up further useful information from my compatriots.

So far, it had only been business as usual.

"Bring out your dead!" Charles cried, ringing his bell in the empty street.

I tended to make my rounds alone, but as I'd been getting to know the other corpse bearers, they'd started to pair up with me in the usual custom.

I pulled the dead-cart with ease while Charles walked alongside as my link man, holding a torch in one hand and a bell in the other.

"Bring out your dead!"

A woman emerged from a cross-marked house and beckoned us over. Charles and I approached.

"Just the one," she said, wiping tears from her sunken face. She looked very frail.

She moved to go back inside, and I followed, ignoring Charles's shocked gasp as I did so. It was considered madness to enter a plague house without protection and I was wearing only a simple cloth tied around my face. Charles, however, did not know that I had nothing to fear from illness, and the woman looked too thin to move a body on her own.

She appeared surprised by my entrance as well but led me up to the second story bedroom without protest.

I was genuinely surprised to find a plague doctor packing up his wares from beside the sick bed. He wore the common mask and uniform, and I could smell the herbs he had stuffed the mask's nose with. The house did look well-furnished and they must have been one of the few families left in London who could afford such care.

I could tell my appearance alarmed him, not from his face which I could not seen, but because of the way his heartbeat increased.

His rushing blood did smell quite good and I had to exhale and pause a moment to compose myself. The temptation passed, getting easier with every week as long as I kept myself full on the blood of red deer.

The doctor moved aside, and I saw on the sickbed the limp body of a child, no more than seven. Her lips and fingers were black and her arms covered in lanced buboes –the doctor's handywork. The mother reached down to lift her, but struggled, and I stepped in to help her.

She gave the girl into my arms and I carried the child down the stairs and out to the street, leading a silent procession as the mother and doctor followed me.

Charles was waiting nervously by the door, peering in but unwilling to cross the threshold. He backed away as I led the little group out.

The mother stopped me as I approached the cart with a shaking hand upon my arm. I looked back at her, but she had eyes only for the child in my arms. Her shaking hands drifted toward the child's face.

"Mrs. Hart," the plague doctor said. A single warning.

Her hand hovered, just over the child's face. She badly wanted to touch her. Her eyes welled over with fresh tears.

Though I witnessed grief daily, I found I had no heart for this. Her tears affected me as if they were my own and I mourned with her.

"I will bury the child," I promised. Her eyes, red by way of crying, snapped to mine. "She will have a grave of her own that you may visit. With your permission, I will return and tell you of its location." It was the only thing I could give her.

"Thank you," she whispered, drawing her hand back and clutching it tight to her breast. "Thank you."

I laid the girl upon the cart, ignoring Charles and the doctor's bewildered stares and picked the cart up to go.

I heard Charles walking behind me, still obviously confused. The mother watched us go from her doorstep until we were out of her sight.

Though it took me almost to sunrise and I had to rush to take shelter in an abandoned house the rest of the day, I buried the girl in a grave of her own and marked it with a cross.

0-0-0-0

"He's killed another vampire," Alistair announced by way of greeting.

He'd caught me on my way into work, pulling me off the road and into a sliver of space between two buildings that barely qualified as an alley.

"Here?" I asked, disbelieving. As far as I knew, the only vampires currently in London were the two of us and the mysterious silver-bearded man.

"Yes, here," Alistair pressed on impatiently. "One of his newborns, I think. I found evidence of a pyre and the remains of a vampire's foot. The place stank of venom and blood too. He must have turned them and then killed them as soon as they changed."

"What ever for?" I exclaimed.

Alistair couldn't look more pale, that was quite impossible for us both, but his skin took on a waxy quality as if he had a touch of seasickness.

"I think he's looking for gifts," Alistair said. His voice was hushed and he displayed a countenance of dread the like I had never before seen on his face. "It's not the first time it's happened. Some vampires like to… collect servants with exceptional talents."

"Like you and your friend," I said.

Alistair jerked away, running his hands through his dark hair.

"That's just it, Carlisle. Bess didn't have a gift. Or if she did it was well hidden. I think he convinced her to join him, lured her somehow, and when he discovered she was of no use to him, he killed her."

I took a moment to consider this. The frequent turnings, the dead vampires, even the gifted servants Alistair had fought after Bess's death...

"This is the perfect place to kill without fear of discovery," I said.

"The bastard is making himself an army," Alistair growled.

"Then there is no hope," I said, throwing up my hands. "The two of us are no match for an army of gifted newborns."

"That's only if he's got any successes yet. I killed his three pets in Inverness. He's picky. If he hasn't found a gift he likes he may still be unguarded."

"Or he may have half a dozen by now," I said. "He's been here how long? Three weeks?"

"Four, I think."

"He could have bitten who knows how many people in that time."

Alistair folded his arms and heaved a loud sigh.

"He could have, but I don't think it's likely. He's doing a damned good job of hiding from me, and I'm a hard man to hide from. But newborns are another thing altogether. They're pure instinct. They've almost no intellect beyond the thirst." He shot me a wry look. "Well, most of them anyway. He might be able to hide himself from me, but a newborn would leave a bloody trail behind them. Even in this season of death, a newborn's kills would be noticeable."

"Do you think that's why he kills them so quickly after they turn? So that they don't have time to leave a trail?"

"It's possible. He knows I'm after him. Yes, that'd be a good strategy. He quickly tests them for extraordinary gifts and when they can't produce any, he kills them."

"We'll have to persevere," I said. "Eventually, he'll err and then we will have him."

0-0-0-0

Charles was not at work that night, nor the next. George grumbled about slothfulness and immorality, but it was clear to see the old man was worried. I realized with regret that I did not know where Charles lived to call on him.

That night, Daniel was my work-mate and we traveled around the streets collecting bodies. Daniel abhorred being the link man so I let him have the cart and I took command of the torch and bell.

We filled the cart in somber silence, then started our way back to the pits.

"Do you know where Charles lives?" I asked as we wandered up Knightrider St.

Daniel shook his head, as talkative as an ox as he pulled the cart.

"I think George is worried for him," I said, hoping to jog some reaction from him.

Daniel pushed along steadily as if he hadn't even heard me.

"Went to the physician," he said just as I'd resigned myself to the quiet.

"What? Tonight?" I asked. "Did he take ill?"

Daniel shrugged. Then shook his large head.

"Yesterday," he said. "Said he'd seen John. They were going to the physician before work began."

"John?" I asked, then remembered that was the name of Charles friend who'd survived the plague.

Daniel nodded once.

We turned up and onto Carter, joined by another cart that was heading back to the pits.

"But then they didn't return?" I asked, a feeling of dread settling in my gut.

Daniel frowned, then shook his head.

I let worry nibble at me for the rest of the walk. Charles was a good lad, if a little naive. I dearly hoped he had not been claimed by the plague. He had a sick father –rheumatism and not the Black Death, thank God—that he cared for.

When we reached the pits, my nose instantly picked out the sweet tickle of fresh blood. My mouth watered, but I'd become adept at ignoring it. Someone must have cut themselves. Still, to be safe, I held my breath and walked a little quicker to the pit. I'd complete my work and leave before the temptation became too great.

Daniel started to tip the cart to dump the bodies in, but I stopped him and waved him off. It was my habit to lower them in with as much care as I could manage. Slower, to be sure, but it was all I could do in lieu of a proper burial.

Daniel, rather than leaving, stood by and watched me with that inscrutable gaze of his.

I picked the first of our charges off the cart –a grandfather dressed in his best clothes, someone had taken the time and risk to change him—and slipped gingerly in, taking pains not to step upon anyone.

As I set the man down, the scratch at the back of my throat began to heat. I was not breathing, and the sensation took me unprepared. I froze and searched frantically about for the source of the blood that doubtless caused the burn.

There, under my very feet, lay a bloody arm peeking out from underneath a plague corpse. Carefully, I set the grandfather's body aside and picked up the one blocking the bloody arm.

Before me lay a ravaged, just-dead corpse. The blood was wet upon its skin and clothing. It could not have been more than a half hour since death. The form was so shredded that its sex was unrecognizable without closer inspection. Still, for the damage done, the amount of blood upon the body was scant. The wounded arm bore the most of it.

I heard a gasp behind me, and looked to see Daniel's fearful face, white as a sheet. He pointed a large, shaking finger and I thought at first he was gesturing to the ravaged soul beneath me. Then I saw to where his finger pointed and my whole being went still with shock.

Laying face-up, revealed by the body I'd moved, was poor Charles, his freckled neck torn wide open and his corpse devoid of blood.

I stared witlessly at the lad, incapable of movement or thought.

"Help!" Daniel shouted above me, his voice the loudest I'd ever heard it. "For God's sake, help!"

Almost without consciousness, I reached down and rolled Charles's body to the side. Another ruined corpse lay beneath, equally carved to pieces. The bite upon its throat was a perfect set of teeth marks.

People were gathering at the edge of the pit. I heard shouts and gasps of horror. Distantly, I recognized one of the voices at George, cursing and demanding that the boy's body be brought up.

I had to find Alistair.

I jumped from the pit, just barely remembering to make it look like it took effort. Someone was speaking to me, the foreman, but I couldn't stay.

"I have to go. I have to go," I muttered. The foreman reached out to hold my arm, but no human could hope to stay me. I took off from the pit, staggering out into the night in search of Alistair.

The vampire had made a newborn.

0-0-0-0

Alistair found me just hours before sunrise. I was wandering about, winding up and down streets, calling for him in a whisper I knew his keen ears could hear.

"What the devil has gotten into you, Carlisle?" he said, jumping down from a rooftop.

I ran to meet him.

"The newborn," I said. "He's got a newborn."

Alistair's red eyes went as round as plates. He glanced furtively about and then tugged me to a corner where one empty house jutted into another.

"You saw it?" he hissed. I shook my head.

"The bodies. There were bodies in the pit tonight. Three of them with their throats ripped out. They weren't there before. I'd have smelled them," I insisted, practically pleading with him to agree with me. "I know I'd have smelled them."

"Yes, I believe you," he said, uncommon concern flitting across his face. "Are you well? What's got you in such a fit?"

I buried my face in my hands, exhaling all my air and letting the emptiness settle me. When ready, I took a breath.

"Nothing. I just…" I raised my head and rubbed at my eyes even though there was nothing to rub from them. "I knew one of the dead. He was a friend."

Alistair gave me an incredulous stare that bordered on irritation.

"A friend," he repeated slowly, as if trying the word for the first time. He blew out his breath and frowned. "Carlisle, why do you insist upon this foolishness?" he asked with more feeling than ordinary.

I wondered that myself sometimes and could only stand there in misery and await his condemnation.

"You have half a head upon your shoulders. Bad enough to make friends with our kind, but humans?" Alistair began to pace. "What end do you think will come of it? What if they were to discover you?"

I dropped my eyes to my feet, examining the dirt and refuse where it stained the toe of my boots.

"You're my friend," was my mulish reply.

He froze.

"No, I'm not."

Such was his tone that I could tell even he didn't believe that. He appeared to realize this and settled for scowling at me instead.

"Fine! You engage in whatever foolishness pleases you best," he said. "The newborn's more important anyway. Tell me everything."

He folded his arms and leaned imperiously back upon the wall, watching me down his nose. I sighed and crossed my arms as well.

"The bodies weren't there at the start of the night, but they were by the time I finished my rounds. I think the newborn or his master were dumping several days' worth of kills." Here I hesitated, less certain of my knowledge. "I think, also, that I may have an idea as to the newborn's identity."

Alistair forgot to be cross and dropped his arms at this.

"Who? How do you know?" he asked.

"A young man who worked as a corpse bearer, John. My friend Charles was last seen with him two nights ago, the night he disappeared. The man had made a miraculous recovery from the plague after visiting a foreign physician."

Alistair furrowed his thick black brows.

"You did not think to suspect this?" he said.

"Have you any idea how many physicians have claimed to be able to cure plague? I'd have to investigate the whole of the profession!" I raised my voice, not because I was truly angry with Alistair, but because I was furious with myself for not catching the hint earlier when it might have saved young Charles life.

"We must find this physician," Alistair said darkly. "Tell me you know where he resides."

"On Castle Alley, though I know not which property."

Alistair grinned wickedly.

"It matters not. That close, and I will be able to sniff him out myself."

Castle Alley was one of the shortest stretches of road in London. The villain had done us a great service in setting up his physician's shop there.

It did have its advantages against us, though. The road butted up against the Thames just at one of the busiest wharfs in the city. It would give any quick-witted vampire a ready escape.

The sun was on its way up though, just as we reached the alley. I began to search for a place to hide, but Alistair stopped me with a tap to my shoulder.

"We'll be fine today," he said, pointing at the sky. I looked up and saw thick clouds had settled in all the way to the horizon.

I blinked owlishly at him.

I knew we only exhibited our curious shimmer when in direct sunlight, but it had somehow not occurred to me that I might freely wander the streets on cloudy days. It was still a bit risky, as the clouds could burn off, but I supposed with a little attentiveness I could easily avoid any sudden breaks in the cloud cover.

When the city recovered, I would have to make use of it.

Alistair stared intently at the row of buildings that made Castle Alley. I could tell he was employing his gift, and resolved not to disturb him. Eventually, the tension went from him and he glanced to me.

"He's not here," he said, disappointment palpable.

"He may return," I said. "If he has set up his shop as a means of luring humans to him, then he must eventually return. We shall lay in wait."

Alistair nodded and we began to make careful examination of the buildings, keeping a careful ear out for unnatural sounds.

There were a few upstairs residences, but most were shops and almost all of them were shut. Even as the morning progressed and the fog faded away, people still did not come to open their stores. Only two, a run-down cobbler that had only one shopkeeper and a small grocer, opened for business around midday.

Every quarter hour or so, Alistair would close his eyes and concentrate, then open them with a exasperated sigh.

The cobbler began to watch us with open interest as we patrolled the street, so we went instead to the water's edge and waited there.

We sat upon the retaining wall, facing out to the polluted river.

"He likely won't return until dark," I pointed out, hoping to keep Alistair's spirits up. He sent me a dark look that expressed without words his exact opinion of my coddling.

We settled in silence, watching the few boats there were come in and out. Someone had pushed a plague body into the river, and it floated garishly past, its bloated back bobbing in the current.

"It didn't used to be like this," Alistair said, breaking the quiet. "The city was only upon the North side, and far smaller in size. The water was clean." He wrinkled his nose at the noxious mess that was the Thames. "Though even then, people did throw their rubbish in it. I suppose that's how it started. Centuries of rubbish and people who multiplied with the vigor of rabbits."

I tried to remember from my histories when London would have been on the one bank. Quite some time ago, to be certain.

"How old are you?" I asked. I knew vampires didn't age, but Alistair didn't look much beyond my years, though I knew he was at least 100 years old.

Alistair grinned wryly at the river, as if it had told an amusing joke.

"I was born in the year of our Lord 1301." His eye flashed to me to catch my reaction. I must have given a splendid one. I was sure my mouth hung open like a simpleton. He laughed. "In Winchester, though we visited London often enough."

1301, over 360 years ago! I could not conceive of any thinking creature save the Almighty existing for such a great period of time. I'd had little schooling on the era and to my frustration the only thing I could recall was that the House of Plantagenet ruled and revolts had been plentiful.

Alistair seemed to enjoy my astonishment and took pleasure in increasing it.

"I was going to be King, you know," he said, drawling out the words for best impact.

"You lie," I said, sure he was having me on. He held up his hands, the picture of innocence.

"I tell you, I do not. My father was a very ambitious man." He grinned, but then a shadow found him and chased the cheer away. His countenance fell to sorrow, then anger and brooding. "May he rot forever in Hell for it," he muttered. "And you?" he asked, and I knew his own reminiscing had come to an end. "What's the rest of that tale about your father and sire? The one with the unhappy end?"

I'd never had to tell anyone about it, and it took me a moment to decide how I should begin.

"My father was a parish priest. He'd been taught by another priest, a mentor, how to hunt unholy monsters. When I was old enough, he taught me in turn. Looking back, I don't think any one of us had ever so much as passed a monster on the street, let alone killed one. My father said he'd slain vampires when I was a boy, but now I know that to be impossible. I suspect he may have slain a common criminal in error.

"Two years ago, I started leading hunts of my own. I never turned up anything until the coven came. We began to find bodies drained of blood. For months, we searched for the vampires, but never with any success. Until… I made a guess, really. Some of the slain had deep cellars in their house. I was unfortunate enough to have guessed right. I led men down there. We…"

I could still remember them being pulled apart by the coven, screaming, though the memory was distorted as if I viewed it through a dirty glass. I remembered how terrified I'd been, and the vampiress holding me pinned in her arms.

"They'd heard us coming and trapped us. One of their number, she must have known who we were. She knew who I was and where I lived. She turned me in order to punish my father for his arrogance."

It had been the worst experience of my entire existence, both mortal and immortal.

Alistair was not laughing at me at least. I feared I would be ridiculed, but he instead appeared melancholy, perhaps even sympathetic.

I waited for him to ask more, but he didn't. He placed his hand upon my back. I had expected his touch to be cold, the way I remembered the vampiress, but he was merely tepid, like water left too long in a room. He patted my back. How long it had been since someone touched me last in affection.

"You're an odd one, to be sure," he said.

Together, we sat by the water and waited for the sun to go down.

0-0-0-0

Concealed on the ground floor of one of the abandoned homes, we kept vigil over the street, Alistair checking every other minute for the location of our quarry. We huddled together against one tapestried wall and spied out the street-facing window.

I listened diligently for any movement that came without heartbeat or breath.

One house looked like it had recently seen use but had not been left locked. This seemed the most likely lair to me, and I stared intently at it through a gap in the curtains.

Alistair's head snapped to the side, his entire form seeming to vibrate like a rung tuning fork. I held my breath and froze, listening and watching intently.

A plague doctor came into view, walking by himself. His footsteps echoed, but as I listened, I could not detect the beat of a living heart. My eyes locked with Alistair's.

At long last, we'd found him.

I shifted to give chase, but Alistair raised a staying hand, and I settled. I listened again. The vampire entered the building we'd picked as the most likely candidate. He could be heard moving about his shop, a bag opening, and materials being drawn out. There was the sound of a cart in the distance, the chatter of rats, and….

A second pair of bloodless footsteps. The newborn had followed its master home.

A young man, red haired and unnaturally fine of feature, stepped briefly into view and then disappeared also into the abode.

I glanced to Alistair for direction. His bright red eyes were fixed fast upon the building.

I heard the red-haired man, John, moving around inside the house, feet too fast upon the ground to be human.

"I'm so thirsty," I head a smooth, light voice. The newborn's.

"You fed not a day ago." The voice was throaty, accented in the way of Nordic men, though I had not the knowledge to tell which country of origin.

Alistair ground his teeth in restrained anger.

"But I'm thirsty again," John whined.

"Quiet!" the vampire snapped. "If you can't behave, I'll send you out."

"I'm behaved. My throat just hurts."

"You've fed too much as it is. That sullen wretch is out there somewhere as we speak. It won't take him long to catch on to your sloppy kills."

The sound of a bag snapping closed and shoes on wooden floors.

"I don't see why we don't just kill the tracker," John muttered.

"I set three of my servants upon him and he survived with nary a scratch. I wont risk it again."

From the distant and vague sounds of the city readying for bed, a set of feet upon the cobblestone drew my attention as it approached. Looking out the window, I spied a young sister, likely from St. Bartholomew's, bundled from head to toe despite the warm summer weather. Inhaling, I could catch the faintest scent of sickliness from her.

I turned to Alistair again, and again he stayed me with a shake of his head.

Inside the shop across from us, the Nord had heard her approach as well.

"My guest is here. Since you've shown you can't comport yourself this evening, I'll have to suggest you go for a swim," the master said.

There was a frustrated sigh, and then the rapid steps of unnatural feet. John exited out the back window, I heard the latch opened, and then the splash of a body entering water. He was going for a swim, as his master had ordered.

Alistair frowned, lines of worry crossing his flawless pale face.

The woman hesitated before the building, glancing up and down the empty street. The lamps had not yet been lit yet and I could tell she was unsure of herself in the dark. She rallied and knocked on the vampire's door.

It swung open instantly to welcome her.

"Sister Mary, welcome," the throaty voice said. I could not see him from my vantage point, but Sister Mary smiled at him and entered the shop.

"Good evening, Mr. Bergen," she replied. She sounded weary, her voice hoarse and cracking.

"My dear, forgive me, but you look much worse than when we last met."

He was moving about the room, picking up clinking objects. She settled herself upon a chair that groaned under her modest weight.

"It's progressed. I've the ring upon my neck, now. I fear it won't be long before I am bedridden," she said. Her voice was thick with emotion.

"Of course, of course," the vampire said distractedly. He kept walking the room, as if pacing about.

"Can something be done, Mr. Bergen? I have no money to give you."

"Oh, don't worry about that, my dear. Tell me again, this remarkable skill of yours. You said you can distinguish one disease from another at a glance."

"Yes? Um, I've some luck for it. The Matron sends them first to me as I am the best of the nurses at spotting early illness in a person." She floundered uncertainly as he continued to pace. "Does this have something to do with the cure?" she asked.

"Oh, yes, indeed it does," he said. "Special talents like yours are signs of a remarkable balance of the vital humors. Yes, I think you're an excellent prospect."

I shot Alistair a desperate look. What did we tarry for? This was our man, his servant was away, and now the poor sister was in danger as well. Alistair replied with a warning scowl, silently commanding me to hold my ground.

"I'm relieved to hear it. What do I need to do?" she asked.

"Why, my dear, it is the simplest thing. If you could give me your arm."

I heard her place her hand in his. I glanced at Alistair, panic in my breast. We could not delay.

"What are you doing?" A hint of concern colored her voice.

Alistair saw me bolt away and lunged to grab me, but it was too late. I rushed from our concealment with all my speed and charged across the alley, into the shop.

The door flew open under my strength. I heard the sister scream.

Before me, a handsome man stood dressed in the uniform of a plague doctor with his mask removed. His hair was chestnut brown and shot through with silver in the beard and temples. He held the sister's arm in his gloved grip, his evil red eyes glowering at me.

The poor sister wilted back, attempting in vain to pull her arm away.

"What's this, then?" Bergen said, gaze filled with malice as he assessed me. "I have been expecting company these many weeks, but I do admit you are not the one I waited for."

Alistair had not followed me across the street. I was on my own.

"Unhand her," I said.

He glanced askance at the woman as if surprised to find her within his grip.

"I'm afraid you'll have to find your meal elsewhere. I've a plan for this one," he growled.

The sister started to struggle in earnest, tears bright upon her cheeks in the candlelight.

"Enough," he snapped. He scowled at me and his gaze bore into mine. "I suggest you tell me what gifts you possess."

"I have no gifts," I said before I even thought to speak.

I recoiled. I had felt a strong urge to answer, and so I had. It had not even occurred to me to deny him. A lump formed in my throat. I began to understand why Alistair had chosen to stay back.

Bergen gave a loud 'tch' of annoyance.

"Worthless," he spat. "I suggest you wait there for me." He pointed a gloved finger at me, and I felt an overwhelming desire to stand unmoving upon the spot for the rest of eternity.

He went to the window, pulling the sister behind him as if she were so much luggage. He glanced out, taking stock of the quiet, darkened alley.

I tried to force my legs to movement. The sister was in danger every passing second.

The strong desire to stay washed through me. I fought it. My will was my own, I recited to myself. I had resisted the devil after first turning, had overcome my thirst at every turn. This, too, I could do.

My will was my own. And I willed myself to move.

The vampire had enough time to turn to me in astonishment as I barreled into him.

I'd learned from my last fight with a vampire, and I focused first on breaking his grip upon the sister. I sunk my teeth into his wrist and set my strength to ripping his hand from his arm.

He roared at me and grabbed me by the throat to pull me off, but I dug in like a terrier upon a rabbit.

My gaze flashed to the sister, her eyes wide and terrified. I crunched down harder upon his arm. His grip relented and she fell free. I saw her stumble back, before Bergen's strength prevailed and he pulled me off by my neck.

I heard her scramble across the floor and out of the building.

Bergen brought his fangs toward me, but I stopped him with my arm under his jaw. He shifted, wrapping his hands so as to pry my head from my body. I grabbed him at the shoulder and attempted to do the same.

"I suggest you stop this!" he ground out between clenched teeth. I felt the compulsion assail me, but now I knew it held no real power. My will was my own.

I pushed my arm further into his throat and heard his skin crack under the pressure.

He hissed in fury. I felt my neck begin to crack as well.

There was a rustling noise, and then the window shattered to pieces as Alistair hurled himself through it and onto his enemy.

Bergen released me and I fell back upon the wall, grasping at my damaged neck.

Alistair had his fangs inches from the Nord's throat, snapping angrily, held just at bay by the other vampire's grip. Alistair had placed his hand over the man's mouth, stopping his speech.

I rallied and rushed to Alistair's aid. I wrapped my arm around the vampire's neck and put my foot into his back for leverage. He growled and thrashed, but I could feel his body starting to give.

"Almost, Carlisle! Keep pulling!" Alistair shouted. He pushed his weight into Bergen to hasten the process.

His hand must have slipped.

"I suggest you stop at once!" The throaty cry was just distinguishable as language.

To my horror, Alistair began to release him, hands falling away as he started to move back.

The villain laughed, delirious with his success.

I wrenched my arm back with all my might and his neck gave way.

The silver-streaked head flew off, smacking into the wall at the far side. His body slumped to the ground.

Alistair shook off the order and we exchanged wild stares.

We were victorious.

"Quick, we must burn the body." Alistair said, jumping into action and grabbing one of the candles. He took also the oil from the fireplace and poured it over the body before touching the flame to it.

The body went up like kindling. I was alarmed how fast the skin caught. Alistair crossed the room to collect the head and cast it upon the flames as well.

"Only way to be certain we don't come back," he explained. I nodded mutely, recovering from the intensity of the battle.

"The newborn likely won't come back. They didn't sound close," he said, glancing out the window much the way Bergen had done just moments ago. "The girl will have gone for help, though."

I nodded again, staring at the flames as they rapidly reduced Bergen to dust.

Alistair came up beside me and companionably clasped my shoulder.

"No gifts, you said? I doubt any man could have shaken that bastard's power off without aid of a gift of their own." He grinned at me.

"I've the gift of willfulness, then?" I joked in a rush of giddiness.

"You just may, Carlisle. You just may." He jerked his chin toward the door. "Let's get out of here before the humans come for us."

I nodded, stamping out the last of the burning cinders, leaving only the charred coals of Bergen behind.

0-0-0-0

We returned to my forest cabin to regroup.

Alistair seemed the lightest he'd been since our acquaintance began. His good mood was infectious and I found myself singing on our walk back, a favorite hymn of mine. Alistair seemed to know it and hummed along the melody.

We must have appeared quite foolish, but I didn't care a bit.

The crack on my neck vanished after an hour or so as if it had never been.

At the cabin, we sat outside in companionable silence and watched the stars.

"You did well. Thank you, Carlisle," Alistair said.

A beetle crawled stolidly across the forest floor. I observed his steady progress with idle interest.

"No, I was glad to be of help. It wasn't much, but at least the people need not fear supernatural violence as well as the plague."

Alistair smirked at this and ruefully shook his head.

"Well, you've helped me avenge a friend and risked yourself to do so. You've my gratitude for that."

The lone beetle shuffled his way over the grass and onto the toe of my boot, where he perched for a minute in the pre-dawn air.

"Would you care to stay for a while?" I asked.

Alistair looked over at me, his pale face serious.

"I could do, for a little while. But its not in my nature to stay fixed in one place. It shouldn't be in yours, either." He looked back at the distant horizon; London somewhere past it with its brown sprawl of buildings. "But London's a good city for hunting right now. I'll stay for a bit."

I smiled softly to myself, and watched the beetle scuttle of into the woods.


End file.
